I think that optimism is nice but ultimately unrealistic. We've seen several hundreds years so far of failure to achieve a revolution within the core, not a single one has succeeded. Not just the USA, all of them across Europe, Canada, Aus etc. This isn't caused by a lack of effort and it's not going to be resolved by simply trying all the same basic strategies (such as mass line) that have been tried.
I believe it is more realistic for communists to simply cripple the core in such a way that projects elsewhere in the world may flourish. Then the core can simply collapse as its power shrinks. It has demonstrated time and time again the ability to prevent the efforts of the left.
This is not a defeatist attitude, it is a "we should be focusing on a different strategy as the existing ones have proven uneffective" attitude.
Let's accept the premisse: the imperial core has been too strong to allow a revolution. You'd still have to grapple with the fact that the relative power of the imperial core is shrinking in comparison with the rest of the world, which in turn would make it possibel again. (Accept if you're talking about absolute power instead of relative, but then the amounts of places where it's possible has been shrinking and there's probably nowhere left.)
Nowhere left? What do you mean? We have ongoing currently active revolutions in more than one country. Phillipines has had an operating people's war for decades? The Tigray region just got plunged into war? Lebanon is on the cusp? Dozens of ML parties are actively building in Africa? Iraq and Iran are probabilities in the future. And these are just the obvious battles to come, somewhat more peaceful movements are to come across south america and south east asia.
Did I just misunderstand you? There's a lot out there.
What I tried to say, but didn't come over apparently, is that if you say that it has been impossible to wage a revolution in the imperial core so far, that implies that the relative weakening of the core makes revolution possible again. When for example China surpasses the US and becomes the new hegemon, the US is, by definition, no longer the core. Thus revoltion becomes possible again. But, this rests on the premisse that you were talking about relative power (in comparison to other countries). If, on the other hand, you say that absolute power prevents revolution, then it doesn't matter that China overtakes the US, because in absolute terms the power of the US remains the same: the CIA is just as efficient as before, and firepower of the US military is just as potent. Thus, revolution in the former core remains impossible. The logical implication of reasoning in terms of absolute power instead of relative power is that because of the endless growth which capitalism implies, all capitalist nations have a growing absolute power, and thus, it would logically follow that as time progresses revolution becomes less likely everywhere.
Edit: My point is that by your logic you have to accept one of the following statements: (1) revolution is becoming more likely in the core, because it's relative power shrinks (2) revolution is becoming less likely everywhere in the world, because the absolute power of the capitalist class and their states grows.
I think that optimism is nice but ultimately unrealistic. We've seen several hundreds years so far of failure to achieve a revolution within the core, not a single one has succeeded. Not just the USA, all of them across Europe, Canada, Aus etc. This isn't caused by a lack of effort and it's not going to be resolved by simply trying all the same basic strategies (such as mass line) that have been tried.
I believe it is more realistic for communists to simply cripple the core in such a way that projects elsewhere in the world may flourish. Then the core can simply collapse as its power shrinks. It has demonstrated time and time again the ability to prevent the efforts of the left.
This is not a defeatist attitude, it is a "we should be focusing on a different strategy as the existing ones have proven uneffective" attitude.
Let's accept the premisse: the imperial core has been too strong to allow a revolution. You'd still have to grapple with the fact that the relative power of the imperial core is shrinking in comparison with the rest of the world, which in turn would make it possibel again. (Accept if you're talking about absolute power instead of relative, but then the amounts of places where it's possible has been shrinking and there's probably nowhere left.)
Nowhere left? What do you mean? We have ongoing currently active revolutions in more than one country. Phillipines has had an operating people's war for decades? The Tigray region just got plunged into war? Lebanon is on the cusp? Dozens of ML parties are actively building in Africa? Iraq and Iran are probabilities in the future. And these are just the obvious battles to come, somewhat more peaceful movements are to come across south america and south east asia.
Did I just misunderstand you? There's a lot out there.
What I tried to say, but didn't come over apparently, is that if you say that it has been impossible to wage a revolution in the imperial core so far, that implies that the relative weakening of the core makes revolution possible again. When for example China surpasses the US and becomes the new hegemon, the US is, by definition, no longer the core. Thus revoltion becomes possible again. But, this rests on the premisse that you were talking about relative power (in comparison to other countries). If, on the other hand, you say that absolute power prevents revolution, then it doesn't matter that China overtakes the US, because in absolute terms the power of the US remains the same: the CIA is just as efficient as before, and firepower of the US military is just as potent. Thus, revolution in the former core remains impossible. The logical implication of reasoning in terms of absolute power instead of relative power is that because of the endless growth which capitalism implies, all capitalist nations have a growing absolute power, and thus, it would logically follow that as time progresses revolution becomes less likely everywhere.
Edit: My point is that by your logic you have to accept one of the following statements: (1) revolution is becoming more likely in the core, because it's relative power shrinks (2) revolution is becoming less likely everywhere in the world, because the absolute power of the capitalist class and their states grows.