For anyone whose really interested in what Becker said, go to the 1 hour and 24 minute mark and watch the whole section. Becker never says that he's opposed to multipolarity, but that multipolarity as an end all be all is not what socialists should strive for. He asks the question "How can we make radical change in America by saying 'Vladimir Putin is our leader?', which is a very salient point. He goes on to say that we should strive for socialist leadership in all of our countries. What is so off about that? Seriously?
The point about the WW1 and multipolarity is making the point that multipolarity alone doesn't end war. Multipolarity between capitalist powers is still destructive.
Rainer Shead is really good at finding convenient quotes from revolutionaries and diluting it to hell and back. He cites Kim il Sung saying “The differences of state socio-political systems, political views or religious beliefs can by no means be an obstacle in the way of joint struggle against U.S. imperialism”, but just thinking about it for like 20 seconds, this obviously wouldn't mean supporting reactionary states against the US for the pure sake of it. Would Kim il Sung have supported Hitler? Obviously not.
This dude misses so often.
Becker: has a based take on multipolarity
Z-posters: durrrr russia goodSo Putin is Hitler now? Have we fallen so far that we are now using the same vulgar propaganda language that the liberals use? Nazi Germany was an imperialist power and when it attacked the Soviet Union it had the backing of most of the western capitalists. Russia is NOT imperialist and it is currently one of the two biggest enemies of the western imperialist hegemony, and they are allied with the other which is a socialist state.
Of course multipolarity is not the end goal, no communist has ever said that. It is however a necessary prerequisite. All the rest of what Becker said is just waffling to obscure the main point: he refuses to support what Russia is doing because it's a bad look in the west right now to "support Putin". But which communist supports Putin? Fuck Putin. Every time that fucker opens his mouth to talk about Lenin he says nothing but bullshit. Of course we all wish that the communists were back in power.
But the point is that a communist should have the geopolitical understanding to grasp the fact that regardless who leads Russia what they are doing on the global stage is objectively beneficial for advancing the anti-imperialist cause and thereby the socialist cause in ALL nations - and yes, including the imperial core itself because when imperialism is dealt a crushing defeat that will open up opportunities for revolutionary action that are currently simply not there.
Unless Russia wins you will not get any kind of socialist leadership in your country, and in fact socialist leadership in the countries where it still exists may be strangled and crushed if imperialism is victorious in this conflict. After Russia China is next. And how long do you think states like Cuba or Vietnam or the DPRK can survive isolated and alone in a unipolar world?
I don’t think they’re not saying Putin is just like Hitler. They’re saying Rainer’s out of context quote implies Kim Il Sung would have supported Nazis as a power fighting US imperialism. It goes along with the logic that led the Trotskyists to support ISIS. Obviously we need to have some sort of line of reaction that cannot be supported. If there were an actual imperialist like Germany fighting the US we wouldn’t support them, but Russia is not at all imperialist so that doesn’t apply.
He asks the question "How can we make radical change in America by saying ‘Vladimir Putin is our leader?’, which is a very salient point. He goes on to say that we should strive for socialist leadership in all of our countries. What is so off about that? Seriously?
Nothing is wrong with that in general, but who is he saying it to? Who are these people that only want multipolarity and simp for Putin? His call for socialism is good, but ignores the material reality of today's world in which new socialist construction is not possible without first the decline of US hegemony.
I don't like Shea and think he's quite problematic, but your comment about what Kim is saying is, I think, not a good portrayal.
but just thinking about it for like 20 seconds, this obviously wouldn’t mean supporting reactionary states against the US for the pure sake of it. Would Kim il Sung have supported Hitler? Obviously not.
The USSR and China did ally with other capitalist and imperialist forces against Japan and Germany in WW2. And today's world is largely split into two camps - the US and China. Critical support given to Russia (which while being reactionary still currently plays a progressive role globally in the struggle against US hegemony and is allied to the world's socialist countries, though only out of necessity) is not the same as "supporting Hitler". Putin and Russia today are not equivalent to Hitler and Nazi Germany.
As Losurdo puts it:
we can speak of a struggle against a new colonial counter-revolution. We can speak of a struggle between the imperialist and colonialist powers — principally the United States — on the one side, and on the other we have China and the third world. Russia is an integral part of this greater third world, because it was in danger of becoming a colony of the West.
Brian Becker and the PSL critically support Russia. Shea takes the critical part and makes it seem like Becker is a "Russia bad" commentator. He's not. Don't listen to Shea talk about Becker. Listen to Becker directly and form your own opinion. When you do, you'll see Shea is dangerous.
I don't take anything Shea says at face value. I've listened to the part of the interview in question and find Becker's answers to be weird and contradictory. As I've explained in another comment, he answers the question “is it good that unipolarity has been challenged?” and his answer is in essence no because it seems like he just argues against some multipolarity in general without considering the material reality of today’s world split into the west and the rest (with China on top). His answer implies that today’s multipolarity is like that of pre-WW1 which is in contradiction with his stance in general.
He's answering the question. Multipolarity, in a vacuum, does not immediately lead to socialism. Socialism must be present along with multipolarity.
He's waffling and refusing to give a clear answer, and the only correct answer for a socialist to give is: yes, because without the defeat of the unipolar US hegemony socialism cannot arise or thrive anywhere.
I guess this is exactly where this belongs then, in leftist infighting. My comrade, you are applying a ridiculous purity test to a political figure who has a much bigger scope of influence, audience, and perspective than you do. And you are choosing to give Rainer Shea the benefit of the doubt in his assessment that the PSL isn't worth listening to despite being shows as a bad actor but not willing to listen to more of Brian Becker to understand where he's coming from despite multiple comrades telling you that it's worth the time because Becker explicitly supports the end of US hegemony.
My perspective is that of someone sitting outside of the US for whom the defeat of US imperialism is the primary interest since that is what is making my life worse and revolution in my country impossible at the moment. I don't know the conditions in the US well enough to say whether what Becker is doing is worth it to attract more people to his movement, but my impression is that he is misjudging the level of support that exists for anti-imperialist and anti-NATO position among the general population. Except that he seems to primarily be addressing a liberal and socdem audience which is why he thinks he needs to add all these caveats and hide his real views.
Yes, he is trying to remain able to draw in liberals to the far left. This is a far better strategy than focusing purely on far right people just because they like Russia at the moment.
So your position is ignorant. Got it. Brian Becker used to be an anti-war liberal. He's been against US imperilaism since he began organizing during the Vietnam war. He understands better than any of us how popular sentiment flows around the US machine, the history of US imperialism, the history of NATO, etc.
Just stop trying to hold your position. It's unwinnable. You literally have no idea what you're talking about because you won't even engage with the content we're discussing.
I do not totally dismiss much of Shea's writing, yet this is wrecker behavior. Anyone who listens to what PSL is actually saying knows they are not against multipolarity, they're the only prominent Amerikan communist organization even tackling its importance!
If that is true then Shea is wrong and should have done his research on Becker and the PSL better. But i can only judge based on what i have read and heard from them so far. If you can point me to where they say they critically support Russia i would appreciate it.
Of the 36 posts i made over the last three months 5 have been about this rift that has developed among the western left between those who support Russia's SMO and those who do not. This is something that is not going away, the conflict has not yet been resolved and remains topical as it relates to one of the most impactful geopolitical developments of our generation.
Rainer Shea is a patriotic socialist who made a hard turn to condemning the PSL at every opportunity after they failed to support his "anti-war" rally with Tulsi Gabbard, Jackson Hinckle, and the Libertarian Party USA.
Brian Becker is one of the most principled communist leaders in the west, and is so frequently portrayed as a "Russian asset" by liberals that the underlap with Rainer's claim here is just funny.
liberals call donald trump a russia asset. just because he is called that doesn't mean he meaningfully support's russia's anti imperialism
Actions speak louder than words, but imo its disingenuous to say that the PSL failing to support RATWM is because of PSL disliking those lolbertarians.
I've spoken with Rainer about this, and while I don't agree or like with everything he says, his point was that RATWM would expand the core message out to a broader populance, and that he doesn't like associating with the Lolberts and likened this to the Bolsheviks working with reactionary trade unions and groups. Obviously not the same situation, but the general message is the same.
We didn't fail to support the event. We rejected the event emphatically. It was a right-wing event.
The general message is not remotely the same. There is a difference between organizing workers in an imperial country where all non-explicitly-communist institutions are reactionary to some degree, and organizing with the fascists self-consciously responsible for making it that way. If you're genuinely confused about that, you have a lot of reading to do, because even the democrats are better at recognizing their enemies.
The libertarian party is both fringe, and the most ideologically anti-worker organization in the US. It's impossible to be further away from union organizing. You think they want to end the war and spend that money on healthcare for workers? They are literally repealing child labor laws. Some of them think slavery should be legalized.
Except that the people in RAWM are most certainly not "the fascists responsible for making it that way", those fascists are sitting on the Atlantic Council, in the RAND corporation, at the State Department, in the CIA, in the White House, at the Federal Reserve, at NATO, and other institutions of bourgeois imperial power. What power do a bunch of libertarian nobodies have? Not to mention that reducing RAWM to just the right wingers is dishonest, afaik it's a broad tent coalition and includes people from the left too as well as a lot of otherwise fairly apolitical people who are just sick of wars.
Of course i don't think that the libertarians will support labor organizing or social spending. But that's not what this is about, this is about one thing only and that is opposing NATO and the US empire's proxy war on Russia. You can support that part without agreeing with the ideological viewpoints of everyone else in the coalition. It just comes down to whether you think it's acceptable to put aside differences over domestic policy for the sake of preventing possible nuclear war and WWIII, because that's where we may be heading if NATO's escalations are not stopped.
I thought the same thing, that libertarians aren’t the most powerful group for reaction, but that doesn’t mean they are highly ideologically anti-worker and anti-communist. Libertarianism declined as a force once the rich realized they could get their same ideology in the mainstream through neoliberalism instead. It doesn’t make the more fringe form less bad.
Libertarian backers have immense wealth from both the fracking boom and silicon valley. The difference between neolib and libertarian is basically non-existent. The Libertarian anti-war stance is opportunism, and their criticism is just that their PMCs should be hired for more imperialist ventures.
Middle income Americans trend reactionary on political-economy because the bourgeois narratives work for them and their livelihood is secure, and the state does often end up helping them out.
America is an exceptionally bourgeois country, especially considering the colonial question. The proletariat is outnumbered and we really need to stop trying to pander to the settler petit bourgeoisie, they already have state power.
Libertarianism is basically controlled opposition. They’re just another far right party with billionaire backing, but they can pretend to be against the establishment because they have no hope at gaining electoral power. They can keep radlibs that might have hope of going left by talking about freedom (including social “progressivism” despite not having power to influence those issues on the right side or even trying to) from.
Yeah but their freedom slogan isn't anything unique, it's the core of Liberalism. The freedom slogan works for radlibs because like Libertarians they most likely lived a middle income life, which in America is very wealthy in global standards, and they only think about the state in terms of limiting their Liberty to get what they want, or not doing enough to protect their ability to get what they want.
Their overwhelming interests (needs rather than wants) are being served by the bourgeois settler state, in the same way as the ML AES's proletariat's interests are served by the vanguard and DotP.
I think the anti-establishment politics don't really exist outside of the worker's movement to take power. All bourgeois ideology is establishment.
You have good points in your final sentence. I was going to say that many of the audience at RATWM are probably led astray or misinformed by the establishment and not directly part of the capitalist oligarchical leaders, but now that I think about it, Tulsi Gabbard being there isn't a great sign. You're mostly right.
I mean, most of any audience is going to be workers, they're 99% of the population. That's never going to be sufficient for determining whether an action is worth supporting. This event was paid for by GOP-aligned billionaires. You couldn't pick a less favorable environment for worker outreach. You could go up to random people on the street and ask them how they feel about the Ukraine war, and you'd have a more serious anti-war movement than this in a month.
Y'know what this is reminding me of? That time Chelsea Manning went partying with libertarians, paid for a ticket to their function, then turned around and tried to say she was 'gatecrashing'. Got a lot of people lately who just wanna party with the enemy and try to reframe it as 'coalition-building'.
Multipolarity is definitely something that communists should support. Of course, it's not the end goal, but it is a necessary step to take in order to dismantle USD hegemony and allow all nations to liberate themselves from debt traps.
The point Becker was making is that multipolarity in and of itself isn't going to end capitalism. Only socialism can do that. Multipolarity between capitalist countries gave us two world wars.
I've read this guy's articles on stuff for a while but never seen anything too bad, what exactly are people's criticisms of him?
Edit: this downvoting shit is so stupid, it's a genuine fucking question
online? i don't use twitter anymore but i'm sure you can search who he supports and similar. read the other responses in this post
So he is "patsoc" because of who he "supports"? And who might that be and where has he expressed this alleged support? Or is it just a "guilt by association" situation?
Multipolarity is coming simply as a part of the historical process of our development - just like feudalism emerged, then capitalism, then imperialism, etc. Empires also come and go and in their wake other countries rise - we have seen this numerous times throughout history. Yet it seems like these socialist anti-multipolarity people think we can stop these processes just by the actions of a few individuals or small groups. Not to mention the straw man argument presented where we apparently just want multipolar capitalism as an end goal and nothing else. Yes, all of us would prefer if every state just turned socialist right away, but that is not physically possible. We have to work with what we are given, and currently that's multipolarity.
we had a multipolar world all the way up until world war II, what did it bring us? The multipolar world brought us World War I, the multipolar world brought us World War II
I cannot believe PSL's cofounder is equating competition between colonial empires to USA trying to subjugate Russia and China.
Becker and the PSL need to read this
The part about the world wars is such a blatantly false analogy that i really didn't want to believe it came from someone like Becker. Not only is the situation today nothing like the situation prior to WWI, when there was no single global imperialist hegemony and more importantly no socialist pole existed, but to claim that it was multipolarity that led to WWII really almost sounds like Nazi apologetics. If he truly thinks this way then he also thinks that the existence of the USSR itself - which represented an alternative pole of power to that of the western imperialists - was a bad thing. Also, he seems to forget that after both world wars socialism came out stronger, both resulted in the creation of more socialist states than had previously existed, and in a significant retreat of capitalism.
There is a fundamental difference between a multipolarity of competing imperialist powers and one of imperialism vs anti-imperialism. The US today simply will not allow the existence of any other imperialist poles of power, we see this clearly in how it has tightened the leash of its various vassals and made sure to subordinate Europe to its will so that it cannot ever become the independent pole of global power that the EU not too long ago dreamed of being. As such all those that are left outside of the hegemon's control are anti-imperialist, if not through ideology then by simple necessity and circumstance. And it is only outside of the suffocating grasp of the US's neoliberal hegemony that socialism can arise, let alone survive and flourish. It seems virtually everyone in the global south can see this, but for some reason many western leftists cannot.
I don't want to jump straight to accusations of chauvinism but there is definitely something wrong here.
Your actions are literally indistinguishable from those of a federal agent, except that feds are less visibly incompetent.
Fed behavior is reinforcing the western imperialist narrative on the Russia-NATO conflict under the guise of ostensibly leftist language or treating it as some kind of "both sides bad" situation.
Based on the contradictory positions Becker takes on Russia compared to China, he's probably just trying to appeal to liberals to grow the PSL. Saying 'Russia not good' is kinda necessary to prevent liberals from losing their minds right now. Does this stance temporarily screw up their real MLtheory? Yes. Does this stance attract more new members? Maybe.
This is exactly the problem. It is possible that this erroneous position was taken out of opportunism, a misguided impulse to try to appeal to liberals by capitulating to the imperialist narrative on Russia. I had a lot of respect for B.B. and the PSL before this, but sadly this has undermined a lot of that. I just don't think you can build a principled socialist movement this way. You are much better off trying to appeal to the apolitical and even the more backwards sections of the working class than to the middle class liberals who have fully bought into the demonization of Russia. More and more i am convinced that no progress will ever be made by any "radical" group in the US until and unless they have completely severed themselves from the Democratic Party.
I had a lot of respect for B.B. and the PSL before this, but sadly this has undermined a lot of that
That's what Rainer Shea is trying to do. If you want to lose respect for the PSL and for Becker, at least go listen to several hours of their content and read the sources instead of trusting Shea.
Have they in any of those hours of content ever expressed support for what Russia is doing in Ukraine or even Russia's actions in Syria? Because if not, i'm not interested. At this point i have personally drawn a line in my life and i have no more time for westerners who call themselves communists or socialists but refuse to support or even defend the boldest and most serious military challenge to the US' global imperialist hegmony in 50 years. Not to mention that Russia is literally fighting against a genocidal fascist regime. The least any principled leftist can do is critically support them in that. To me this goes hand in hand with supporting the economic challenge that China's BRI represents to the global neocolonial yoke. They can praise the USSR and talk Marxist theory all day but the bottom line is: anyone who refuses to support either of these two main pillars of modern anti-imperialism is simply not worth taking seriously as a revolutionary. Because there is no way in hell you will ever get to socialism without first defeating imperialism, and the only ones currently striking any serious blows at it are Russia and China - and as much as i love the PRC at the moment the Russians are actually doing more, they are physically fighting and dying in battle against fascism and imperialism. Meanwhile the likes of Becker and the PSL can sit comfortably in the imperial core criticizing Russia for its contradictions while they themselves opportunistically work with the imperialist murderers of the Democratic Party. And don't try to deny it, both the PSL and the CPUSA have ties to the Democrat political machine and both have at times advocated for voting Democrat.
Have they in any of those hours of content ever expressed support for what Russia is doing in Ukraine or even Russia’s actions in Syria?
Yes, critical support. War is bad. War is hell. But Russia didn't start the war. They go into the history of NATO, they speak to Russia's legitimate security concerns. Becker explicitly says something like "I may not personally agree with the choice to go to war but it's not my choice, it's Russia's choice to defend it's national sovereignty against NATO which is an existential nuclear threat".
At this point i have personally drawn a line in my life and i have no more time for westerners who call themselves communists or socialists but refuse to support or even defend the boldest and most serious military challenge to the US’ global imperialist hegmony in 50 years.
Becker isn't a cheerleader for anyone attacking the US. That's not his role. But he absolutely states the US should lose the proxy war, that the US is the most powerful anti-worker and anti-communist force in the world, and that it should not be defended. He also states, correctly that the US losing is insufficient for the socialist cause and if the US loses it could just result in an openly fascistic and crazed nuclear conflagration so we need to build socialism here and stop the US from destroying us all. It's not enough for Russia to win this battle if the US just escalates to global conflagration, it's got to be MORE than just Russia winning.
Not to mention that Russia is literally fighting against a genocidal fascist regime.
We all are, it's called the North Atlantic. The Ukrainian state is genocidal and fascistic only through the influence and material support and cultivation of and by the North Atlantic.
The least any principled leftist can do is critically support them in that
They do. Stop listening to Shea. He's deliberately misrepresenting this and we haven't figured out why yet.
To me this goes hand in hand with supporting the economic challenge that China’s BRI represents to the global neocolonial yoke. They can praise the USSR and talk Marxist theory all day but the bottom line is: anyone who refuses to support either of these two main pillars of modern anti-imperialism is simply not worth taking seriously as a revolutionary.
Becker and the PSL are not sitting around talking about glorious histories. They are engaged in trying to figure out how to get more people on the socialist track and hopefully with least amount of conflagration possible, knowing full well that war will happen. They don't shit on China, nor the BRI. To the contrary, they defend it against attack. What they don't do is glorify it and cheerlead for it. Again, not their role.
Because there is no way in hell you will ever get to socialism without first defeating imperialism
And Becker and the PSL know that. And they also know that they can only defeat imperialism domestically, so they waste as little time as possible in trying to get Americans to support China, because it literally does nothing material. They spend half their time tearing down liberal arguments and the other half trying to paint a picture of what socialism might look like in the hopes of inspiring people to actually support a socialist party in America and take down the imperialists from the inside.
the only ones currently striking any serious blows at it are Russia and China
Which is why the PSL and Becker defend them against liberal arguments but also try to build a movement domestically so that it isn't solely on the shoulders of Russia and China.
and as much as i love the PRC at the moment the Russians are actually doing more, they are physically fighting and dying in battle against fascism and imperialism.
We can agree to disagree here. The Russians didn't invade Ukraine to undermine US hegemony. They invaded to protect their national security interests against a deadly encirclement. China, on the other hand, is proactively undermining US hegemony on multiple fronts simultaneously (diplomacy, industrialization, finance, currency, education, rhetoric, etc)
Meanwhile the likes of Becker and the PSL can sit comfortably in the imperial core criticizing Russia for its contradictions while they themselves opportunistically work with the imperialist murderers of the Democratic Party. And don’t try to deny it, both the PSL and the CPUSA have ties to the Democrat political machine and both have at times advocated for voting Democrat.
I have no love for the CPUSA. The PSL is currently the best option for a socialist party that I've seen. They're not PatSocs, their not a voter mobilization association, they aren't revisionists. Simultaneously, they're not millenial/gen Z integrated - no memes, no loud calls for death to America, no cheerleading US opponents. They are sober, measured, and thoughtful.
Honestly though, I just remembered this is all so fucking silly. Becker's show used to be on RT America before it got shutdown and he had to go to independent podcasting. Like, if you're upset enough to not listen to some imperial core leftists, then stop listening to Rainer Shea. This article he wrote is literally trying to generate the response you've just had, and it's crystal clear to me and anyone else who's been listening to Becker and the PSL that Shea is full of shit and deliberately sowing discord.
Ok, this was a good response. I'll take your word for it and give Becker and PSL the benefit of the doubt on this one, because i had previously only heard good things from them in the past. I still think Shea gets an unfairly bad rap on this site and for the life of me i can't understand why.
We're telling you why. It's because he's lying through his fucking teeth in a way that requires him to deeply understand what he's doing.
I'm not sure how you conclude that he is lying. He may simply be overly critical and have picked up on something that was not meant that way. He's not even saying that you shouldn't support PSL, he is just critical of this one thing they said. I'm sure he has a bias, it's clear he thinks PCUSA is a more preferable organization that has a better position on the Russia issue. But i don't see where he is deliberately lying. You're being just as uncharitable toward him as he is toward Becker. For my part i remain unconvinced that either of them are acting in bad faith, i think they are both hostage to their own biases, as we all are.
Rainer literally interprets Becker's critical support across MULTIPLE sources of Becker's words as anti-Russian sentiment. If anyone listens to Becker's words across multiple sources, it's clear that he's not anti-Russian despite critiquing Russia as not socialist, which is accurate. But then Rainer goes on to find Becker's words of support for anti-imperialism, which are no doubt inclusive of Becker's words establishing pretty clearly that Russia is not an imperialist power, and instead of revising his understanding he literally accuses Becker of being inconsistent in his position and being self-contradictory.
Now, if it were you, a normal every day person who hasn't been doing political analysis in the public sphere for 5 years like Rainer has, and you found some milquetoast critique of Russia as not socialist, some demuring that multipolarity is not enough on its own, and some anti-war sentiment, you could be excused for thinking that the speaker was maybe not to your political liking. But then, if you find more words by that person that absolutely support your political position, you might think "hmm, maybe I was wrong about this person" and maybe you'd listen to them more and learn more about their position.
Rainer, on the other hand, has been writing hit pieces against Becker and the PSL for months now, if not longer. He clearly has listened to more of their content than you have, and when he specifically selects, in some cases omits words from his selections of quotations, cuts quotations short, and recontextualizes them and editorializes off them, and then he comes across words that contradict his interpretation, he doubles down and accuses them of being inconsistent and self-contradictory.
It would be fucking hilariously hamfisted propaganda if people like you, who I've never had issue with, are actually considering that maybe he's just a little biased perhaps. It's honestly too much. Please, just listen to Becker's podcast, specifically select only the Ukraine episodes to keep it short. Listen to them on 1.35 speed. Skip the parts about other topics. It's not that hard to show how much of a snake Rainer is being here.
I used to listen to Becker's program but i will admit i have let it slide somewhat since the Russia conflict started. That's why i was so surprised to read this from Rainer because it wasn't what i was expecting. I don't know what Rainer's motivation is but i will take your advice and be more critical when reading his attacks on other leftists. I still think he is correct on what he writes about supporting Russia, but he does seem to have a bit too much of an axe to grind with other leftists. Maybe it's because drama gets good engagement on social media. But that kind of thing is not to my liking, i think the more active leftist orgs we have the better, even if some of them are imperfect and sometimes skew too far toward either right opportunism or ultra leftism.
Thank you for taking the time to write actual responses and educate me instead of just dismissing me like some others have done here.
Go to the 1 hour and 24 minute mark of the interview, that's NOT what he's saying. View my other comment.
I mean, he is still kind of saying that, no? He answers the question "is it good that unipolarity has been challenged?" and his answer is in essence no because it just seems like he argues against some multipolarity in general without considering the material reality of today's world split into the west and the rest (with China on top). His answer implies that today's multipolarity is like that of pre-WW1 which is in contradiction with his stance in general.
The question itself is problematic. What does it mean for it to be good? In a vacuum, no, multipolarity is not inherently good for the working class, and the evidence is forms of multipolarity that were bad for the working class. For multipolarity to be good, it must be inclusive of an anti-imperialist pole at minimum and an explicitly socialist pole must develop as well. Becker doesn't say China isn't that, but we all know that Russia isn't socialist so it's not enough for Russia to challenge the US. He's correct on this. The situation is terribly fraught right now. We are all waiting to see what BRICS announces in late August and we are all watching China without making predictions or value judgments hoping that we end up in the multipolar chess board we need. Until then, focus at home where you have power.
Listen to Becker's podcast and it becomes abundantly obvious that Shea is full of shit and acting in bad faith.
Rainer is a shill. Anyone who's been listening to the PSL and to Becker's analyses knows that Becker is not against multipolarity. Becker's position is summed it quite well in the quotations Rainer pulls out of context - multipolarity is not a solution, only socialism is a solution.
The interpretation Rainer applies to the words of Becker are bald-faced bad faith interpretation. Becker is being quoted literally as saying that China and Russia are not looking to replace the US as the new global hegemon. Becker doesn't disavow multipolarity, nor does he state it should be resisted. Martin's quotation, which echoes Becker's analyses from other contexts, is that Russia isn't communist and in fact may even be anti-communist, and there are other countries in BRICS that are also anti-communist domestically. We must be vigilant there. Becker's position on Russia is measured - the US is at fault and also war is hell. We don't need to revel in bloodshed to have a multipolar analysis, nor do we need to defend Russia as a pure beacon of hope in order to understand the historical context that led to the now-escalating conflict nor to understand a Russian victory as the only outcome that will support socialism, a position that Becker has reiterated for years.
Rainer selects quottations from Becker and Becker's work that demonstrate Becker's position and instead of using them to establish a consistent reading of the PSL's position uses them to make a contradiction where none exists. First, Rainer assumes that the measured and nuanced position on Russia means Becker/PSL is anti-multipolarity, believes Russia and China are imperialist, and that the PSL is PatSoc. Then, Rainer selects quotations from the PSL and from Becker that disprove his own assumptions, but he frames that as "see how inconsistent these people are, they are disproving their own thesis".
I don't know what game Rainer is playing and who's paying him, but he's completely lost my trust in every single substack article I've ever read from him. He completely misrepresents the PSL and Becker and uses modern "journalistic" techniques like a strong propagandist does. Reports some facts, misinterprets those facts but frames the interpretation as fact not opinion, then reasons from there to a conclusion that is completely and obviously untenable, with the only goal of leaving the reader with an impression about the ideology of a third party.
If you read this particular piece, the only logical conclusion from the perspective of the author is that 100% of what has been said by the Russian government must be taken as pure unadulterated fact and that any attempt at interpreting the situation beyond that is equivalent to opposition of Russia. Every single serious communist treats the words of any government as propaganda, and as such, always takes a nuanced approach to interpretation. Rainer does not seem to even acknowledge this as a possibility, yet clearly demonstrates the capability by applying a nuanced interpretation of Becker and the PSL.
AFAIK, Rainer is a wrecker and a spoiler. He may be an op. He may just be a PatSoc looking to undermine the PSL so that something more vile can fill the void. My money is on him being an op.
I highly recommend you all listen to Becker's podcast (The Socialist Program) and listen specifically to the episodes on Ukraine and on Multipolarity and come to your own conclusions. And if you find that my assessment of Becker is a reasonable one, I would highly recommend putting up shields whenever Rainer's work comes through. From my perspective it's getting bad enough that I think we need to really consider as a community where we are going to limit how Rainer's work comes through here. I fear that amplifying and propagating his work is dangerously anti-communist.
Hard agree, we should also remember his bad faith readings of Gerald Horne. There are a lot of people (online) who take Rainer's portrayal of certain writers at face value. His bad faith quotes continue into his preferred writers in the form of book worship as well.
All of these attacks to defend coat tailing libertarians and PatSocs. 🤷🏾
Shea is such a bad faith op, I'm not even sure why people take him seriously. Another funny thing that I saw in the article was that he quoted Becker saying "what we need is the multipolar world.’…as a Leninist" when Becker says in the full interview "as a marxist leninist". It's literally ONE WORD that he chose to editorialize out. Why would he do this? I don't know...
Is there something we can do on Lemmygrad to limit Shea's impact? It feels like we moved the reactionary memes into a single community to stop their spread, but now we have this brain rot coming in elsewhere. Maybe we can ping @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to opine?
I think it’s fine as it is. Most of the Rainer Shea posts recently have been in the leftist infighting community, as a place to criticize them after OP found the sort of reaction they got.
Maybe the best approach is to just dissect this stuff when it gets posted and explain why the takes are bad. Maybe can start aggregating common tropes and addressing them on prolewiki or something so we can just link to an existing article when something comes up repeatedly. I think it's particularly important to deal with people who claim to have a Marxist position and argue in bad faith because they ultimately end up driving people away. It has to be clear that they don't speak for us, and why we disagree with their position.
I'm not trying to be pedantic here, especially since I'm new to posting here, but I have to ask: why can't we just ban them? Would we not ban Matthew Heimbach just because there's a picture of him holding a communist flag? To anyone paying attention, Rainer Shea has been a long-standing problem in virtually every active communist community on the internet. He polemicizes anyone who doesn't support allying with the US far-right. I saw this post 2 months ago and he's gotten so much worse since: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/139750w/petition_to_ban_rainer_sheas_blogaccount/
Do we just not have the resources to enforce a ban? I think he should be treated the same as Wisconcom.
I also support a wiki page and would contribute to it.
Personally, I'm not against banning stuff like that either, but there is educational value in discussing it critically as well. A lot of people here are well informed and are able to intelligently address such articles which helps others learn in turn. I'm not a mod though, so would be good to hear what our mods views on this are. :)
I don’t think we need to ban Shea posting. It’s not like he’s a griefer or spammer, he’s just someone who writes blogs that sometimes get shared. It’s true he should be delegitimized, but that can be done through having struggle sessions like these better than outright banning him.
I think he's fully delegitimized among those who know his name. The problem is that he's not gonna stop posting literal made-up bullshit and new people will upvote and uncritically consume it because he uses headlines like "Why Anti-Imperialism is Good". While I will bully him at every sighting, I can't commit to being online as much as him.
As long as it's confined to the infighting comm I don't think it's a problem. But he's clearly strategic about where and when to post each article to trick the most people into reading.
I don't think my proposal is unreasonable. This site is not a big tent, there's already a separate site for that.
Well, there is no article on Rainer Shea. This might end up being a project for a bunch of people to do the research into Shea, gather his works and appearances, and then attempt to build a map of his positions, and then dismantle his problematic positions thoroughly. Sounds like a ton of work.
