I was all into electoralism up until the 1-2 punch of Corbyn and Bernie getting screwed (and just straight up losing) within the span of 2 months. From there I thought electoralism still had it's place but was thinking more about how we'll never get to "vote" for socialism, and started leaning towards being an ML. And then recently, I'm just really down on the hope for any sort of internal change within the imperial core. I think change is going to have to be forced upon the global north by the global south. And even though Iive in the US, I just feel more and more disconnected from this place. I find I'm way more interested in what's going on in places like Cuba, China, Good Korea, Peru, Bolivia, India, etc. I find myself not even really caring about US politics except for when it comes to issues of foreign policy.
And in my observation, it feels like a lot of comrades here seem to be following this trajectory.
Of course as I move along this path, I still don't seem to have a really good feel on what I'm supposed to do, you know?
After the Bernie thing, someone posted in r/CTH a picture of Lenin with the text "where did all that being you, back to me...". And then I started reading Lenin.
That exact post was how I found out he'd lost Super Tuesday. It wasn't a fun day.
I'll be honest, seeing that meme after Corbyn losing with the caption, "the tankies are right once again," got me interested in hearing what the tankies had to say, lol.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/7dfe9ef0677aaffc6669d068ea53e501/tumblr_pna6xnBOtM1x2wuwro1_1280.jpg
The real horseshoe theory is when you go past Maoist/Third Worldist and end up back at anarchism because the best thing to do from within the imperial core is to prioritizing dismantling the whole thing and building mutual aid networks to support people that will otherwise either suffer and die or be caught up by reactionaries.
This doesn't seem incompatible with Maoism at all. Gotta adapt to your conditions and shit
Yeah I think there's definitely synthesis to be found with Maoism and anarchism especially with regard to mass line tactics.
Hard agree. Of all the ML tendencies, I vibe best with Maoists. Those mfs are wild.
Yes, even recently, the furthest left politicians will speak out against the blockade of Cuba (good), but then hedge that by decrying the Cuban government as authoritarian or undemocratic.
Giving up on workers in the most powerful parts of the world (no matter how pampered they are by capital) means just giving up and watching third world workers throw themselves at the empire's tanks and jets over and over again until something different magically happens. It also implies that your revolutionary potential comes only from how exploited you are. If that were the case then socialist revolutions (not nationalist ones) would have happened in every former colony instead of just a few (like China or Burkina Faso) and that political consciousness isn't real force.
Western workers have a responsibility to build a left in their countries that is capable of throwing its weight around instead of shirking that responsibility and turning leftism into a "its not happening, its too hard, someone else far away will do it". Finally, if and when left revolutions do happen in the third world, they are likely to have mutate into nationalist reactions when the west attacks them. There is no future in which the left succeeds for good in which workers of the most industrialized countries are asleep.
:che-cigar: once said the people in the imperial core have the most important fight of all
There is no future in which the left succeeds for good in which workers of the most industrialized countries are asleep.
But which are the industrialized countries now? America has moved from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism.
US workers can stop US arms, its one of the few things they still make here
But which are the industrialized countries now?
The same countries which were industrialized 50 years ago, now adding China, SK, India etc to the mix. Organizing workers doesnt mean only factory and farm workers.
Industrial capitalism vs financial capitalism is a non-scientific distinction. It's a common complaint from the petit-bourgs and even fascists that "real productive" capitalism is being replaced by "unproductive parasitic" financial capitalism. It is objectively false, first world countries have massive industries, they are just automated more and employ less.
I mean, industrial vs financial is a distinction even some marxist economists (i.e. Michael Hudson) make. Not that industry is no longer here, but that growth is in the "financial" sector instead of the real world. I just meant to say that (arguably) the most important industrial country is already socialist.
Exactly this. I don't disagree that imperial core workers benefit from the exploitation of the global south and even that this is an obstacle to revolution, but the third worldist argument that this is the reason revolution isn't happening in the imperial core never made sense to me. First because most workers in the first world are not educated on the basic principles of socialism, let alone imperialism, unequal exchange and all that;* and second because like you said revolution isn't happening in the third world either. It seems to me third worldists dismiss the role of capitalist ideological hegemony and anti-communist propaganda too much.
*In fact, to the extent that people are aware of these things they see them as bad. Most people who know about the sweatshops and the child labor that make our clothes and phones think it's fucked up, they just don't see it as something they have the power to fix
When change is forced upon the global north, it will still be an internal change, just one triggered by external conditions. And that internal change, whenever it happens, will need local principled and organized communists. So, the thing to do is the same as always, educate yourself and others, agitate, organize.
This is really good, because as a white person in the global north, while I agree with third worldism it can also make me feel kinda useless.
idk shit really but does it make sense to think in terms of "ml in the global south, mutual aid in the imperial core"?
Someone has to drive towards balkanization and also organize mutual aid groups to support those in need. I get that feeling of helplessness, but thankfully there is very real work to be done in the core.
if you want to do a revolution then why would you want to force balkanization, it would just make it easier for reaction.
It’s less wanting it to balkanize and more that I don’t believe the contradictions of the American empire will allow it to stay united once it reaches a breaking point sufficient for revolution.
Yea circa 2016 my thought process was "America sucks, I hate living here" to "America sucks, it must be razed to the ground"
The best thing the United States can do for the world is balkanize and die. I agree that revolution will not come from the imperial core; the American civil religion is too strong to break while the state (which has been entirely captured by capitalists) exists. If all my friends and family weren't in this godforesaken country I would leave yesterday tbh.
Is pushing an anti-imperialist movement within the imperial core worth it? I think it's the best thing we can do right now
Yeah, everything we can do to prevent the US from fucking with other countries is absolutely worth it. That said, the biggest protest in American history was in 2003 against the Iraq War and it didn't change shit so I'm very skeptical of the ability for us to change foreign policy calculus in the United States.
Everything builds on itself. Also, Iraq war protests were fairly divorced from labor organizing, any major protests in the next decade or so will have a very different relationship to labor. Without that, yelling in the streets doesn't do much
Agreed. And I want to make clear that's not to say we shouldn't do it—I was out there last year with the Iran protests—because what the fuck else are we going to do, I'm just not hopeful. Linking the labor movement with international solidarity is the way to do it, but once again I'm skeptical that American workers, the labor aristocracy built by decades of imperialist enrichment, is going to come out to do that.
It's cool, I don't think ML is "wrong" and Maoism is "right", just different areas of emphasis.
I think people use it to refer to the idea that revolution will come from people exploited on the periphery instead of the advanced workers in the imperial core
Edit: but, if you're living in the imperial core and can share their cultural language, it's kind of your responsibility to try to organize in the core anyway. Always organize where you're at, spending your time looking longingly at the global south does exactly nothing. Might as well be a Trot
spending your time looking longingly at the global south does exactly nothing. Might as well be a Trot
Great take, seriously.
Thats an insult to trots since they work so hard on their newpapers
Giving up on the West can, in some respects, be liberating for the soul. It means you don't have to care as much.
Makes me wonder if future generations will have to go through the same cycle
:this-is-fine: :flattened-bernie: :doomjak:
only if we fail to pass on our memory to them. The only reason we had to learn this shit the hard way is because political education happens through dem or gop aligned sources.
ahhhnold voice : I’M YOU AND YOU’RE ME AND YOU’RE ME AND I’M YOU
My trajectory over the last five or so years:
Liberal -> progressive -> democratic socialist -> Trotskyist -> ML -> MLM -> Dengist / all my socialist heroes are 70% right 30% wrong (even Trotsky was good until the Civil War ended).
As for third worldism, yeah, seeing white workers not wearing masks at the supermarket will do that to you.
even Trotsky was good until the Civil War ended
I think Trot jokes are funny but also we only hurt ourselves if we completely ignore Trotsky's contributions or pretend like he had zero good ideas.
Guy organized the Red Army into a seriously powerful force, defeated the entire Entente, and did it all from a super cool armored train. Plus he was a Menshevik who realized "oh shit the Bolsheviks are actually going to do it, time to join them" in a show of left unity somewhat rare historically. Lenin trusted the hell out of him and his role in both 1905 and 1917 can't be denied. Fell of the wagon later, sure, but he was and will be an important figure on the left. Plus I love his history of the Russian Revolution, great piece of writing.
Not to mention being chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet. And also, at least according to Ten Days that Shook the World, being in every single meeting to dunk on people
My journey was similar, but more about becoming disillusioned with ancom theory and organizational praxis. In 2016 I was pretty disdainful of the idea of building a "party," which I saw as anachronistic and regressive. Now I'm not sure how we're going to get anything done without turning the DSA into an explicitly DemCent revolutionary party and resurrecting local soviet-esque appartuses.
Seems like the pcusa is already constituted like that albeit obviously much smaller.. Do you think converting the dsa is a more viable path or would it be better for USians to focus their energy elsewhere?
I think DSA is where the popular energy and numbers are, not to mention a lot of young organizers who don't see any better options. Converting the DSA into something resembling a revolutionary party is possible, I think. But it would take national fully disowning the Democratic Party.
So maybe not that possible after all.
Maybe the answer is pretty much that a whole lot more people need to be in all such organizations pushing the ML/demcent line, since "wait and see" is not an option.
