Because I feel like I'm in one.
I believed in the necessity of a vanguard party for a long time, but...material conditions. If there were a well-defined leader—even of something like the protests in PDX—they would have already been imprisoned on trumped up charges or Fred Hampton'd. Likely the former at this time. Historical evidence suggests this is the case, as do present conditions. Based on how brutally we're seeing the police treat anonymous members of the antifascist resistance, it's getting really hard to imagine how it could be possible to have anything remotely resembling a leader, or even a party with a membership list and regular meetings.
I understand the implications the lack of a central organizing structure has on our ability to effectively resist the state, but because of how everything has played out so far it seems like this might...actually be working in our favor. At least, considering what's unfolded up to the present moment I have a hard time picturing it going better if we had defined leadership that the state was able to target right out of the gate.
There's also the fact that (at least I'm ready to concede this at this point) that the US in its entirety isn't going to undergo a socialist revolution backed by the masses, and that the most likely scenario heading in that direction is a balkanization with the emergence of something better as one of its fragments (most likely west coast/PNW). Such a something better would be more likely to (successfully) take the from of an autonomous region similar to Chiapas or Rojava, versus a traditional socialist state amidst a sea of late/post-war capitalism.
Finally, another thought regarding material conditions...who are the people out there at this very moment resisting the state? It's anarchists. No one, myself included, is effectively organizing any type of meaningful ML resistance to meet this moment, but there are folks out in the street fighting cops every single night. They are the ones doing the work, and all we can say about it is "hmm, sure looks like we are approaching revolutionary conditions". But...it's other folks doing the work, and we're sitting around hoping to cash in on it later.
I'm getting ready to jump ship.
I've always wondered how a possible revolutionary movement in the US would be integrated with Native American struggles. Are most tribes "revolutionary" in any way? I would assume a revolutionary communist group thats based in a reservation would be much harder to infiltrate, spy on, and dismantle by the us gov no?
I couldn’t say whether most tribes were revolutionary or not. There is certainly revolutionary potential. However, there is a not insignificant part of Indigineous people that do not consider Marxism a path to freedom. I forgot the name of the guy, perhaps someone can help me out, but basically he was a Lakota who made a speech in the 80’s about how Marxism would not free the Lakota at all. Essentially, he said it was in the vein of other “European” ideologies, exploiting the earth for the sake of “progress” instead of “profit.” While I didn’t agree with all his points, there is certainly a point in how sustainability and spiritual communalism is valued among Indigenous people, and how any society that comes post capitalism must come to value those things not only to gain support from the Indigineous, but for the betterment of all the working class.