(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
A disappointing thread with little substantial criticism. I expected more from Roderic Day, i always enjoyed reading his essays. This just seems to boil down to accusing MWM of associating with “patsocs”, ironically falling into the exact same purity fetish that the book criticizes. The national question in the US is highly complex and there is a good argument to be made that for revolutionary progress to be possible the US itself as it currently exists must be dismantled. But this is not a question of moral principles, rather one of strategic necessity, expediency and viability. Is it even possible to build a revolutionary movement on the basis of the “American” settler proletariat? Or conversely, is it even possible WITHOUT it? The answers to these questions will have to be borne out by practice and active revolutionary struggle, they won’t be found in theory, essays and books.
I think there is plenty of substance in Roderic’s critique. You can check out the response MWM gave and some back and forth with Roderic here (scroll up for the full thing).
As for accusing MWM of associating with patsocs, no accusations are needed as they openly do associate with patsocs. They’ve had multiple friendly interactions with Hinkle and Haz both on twitter and on some streams/podcasts. These have been ongoing for at least a year now, if not longer.
I don’t think patsocs fall into the “purity question” at all because they are simply neither communists nor leftists of any sort.
I think you’re right about criticizing them doesn’t make you a purist, but I think at least some of them do believe in communism or leftism, though they are a severe right deviation, not understanding dialectics, material conditions or the character of nationalism.
I agree, but at some point a deviation becomes a full disconnect. I think some of the people that end up in patsoc spaces are just misguided while actually searching for an alternative to mainstream narratives, but I don’t think that applies to the leadership. I’m constantly reminded of stories of fascist movements starting out in Europe using all sorts of leftist sounding rhetoric while obviously being reactionary. A perfect example I think is Mussolini’s story.
I know you’re not saying we shouldn’t criticize (this part is not necessarily directed at you but at everyone in general), but we must criticize the patsoc positions (and ones like MWM that are either there already or seem to be on their way). How else will we ever build a proper communist movement? Marx, Lenin and all the other great communist theorists relentlessly criticized anyone that was deviating. Of course, this didn’t stop, for instance, the Bolsheviks from forming strategic alliance with e.g. the Mensheviks, but only to achieve specific political goals, and all the while still criticizing the incorrect positions held by their temporary, strategic allies.
I don’t think there’s much, if anything, to be gained from US communists allying with patsocs. Lenin talks about compromises, their nature and how to approach them (which types of compromises are beneficial and which aren’t) in ‘“Left-wing” communism, An infantile disorder’ and I think we should take that lesson a bit more seriously.
I’m also reminded of his criticisms of the Economists in ‘What is to be done?’ while talking about the need to build a genuine Marxist movement, and not to allow the class struggle to be limited only to certain areas (in that particular example, trade unionism) and that the Party should be ahead of the spontaneous class consciousness of the proletariat so it can guide it to the correct line and not chase it’s tail (tailism). The patsocs and patsoc-adjacent positions limit class struggle in the realms of settler colonialism and corresponding land-back and decolonial movements, and in a lot of cases in the realm of struggle for LGBTQ and other minority rights.
In the imperial core in general the conditions are not ripe for revolution (and I don’t think they will be for quite some time) so I think that building a proper ML party/movement should be the main goal. A movement that is ideologically “pure” if you want to call it that, but one that will be strong internally and ready to lead the revolutionary masses when the time come. Lenin talks about keeping the correct line and thus achieving actual results for the proletariat which will itself bring more people to the movement as opposed to other, deviating movements. Doing all this is of course much easier said than done but I think more effort going in that direction is sorely needed.
The main point I would like to say about this “purity” discussion is that I think it’s framed in an entirely wrong way. The material conditions simply aren’t revolutionary in the imperial core yet and we need to be thinking about long-term plans. This talk of purity in ideology is largely useless when the majority of the western working class is benefiting from imperialism. Of course they aren’t flocking to the ML line. The material conditions guide ideology, not the other way around. (sorry for the long comment)
It seems like most people especially patsocs ignore those who actually have revolutionary potential. We should be focused on organizing the colonized, the homeless, certain sections of the lumpen proletariat, and so on.
Yes, although I think we should be skeptical of basing our movement on the lumpen. As Marx and Engels point out, the lumpen can be quite easily bribed by the ruling classes and doesn’t really form a solid revolutionary movement. But classes like colonized people and black people in the US have already historically been involved in vanguard formation (e.g. the Black Panthers), and even today we see genuine movements popping up which are led by these classes (e.g. Stop cop city, and even things like the Amazon union led by Chris Smalls). The patsocs disregard (or even attack in the case of land back) all this and instead choose to pander to reactionary white sections of the population whose revolutionary potential is non existent.
To circle back a bit to the purity discussion, today I found this great pamphlet by Lenin in which he talks about factionalism and I think that discussion nicely mirrors the purity discussion and MWM’s position (which, despite what they claim boils down to “everyone in unpure except us”).
Well I mean, we have 400 years of colonization and worker’s movements already existing to study. It’s beyond the point in time to notice the most effective attacks at the US state have come from indigenous and Black nations. American Communists are overwhelmingly illiterate in how the colonized nations of North America came to be subjugated by the settler state. Nobody says the American workers can’t advance Decolonization, but centering the movement on their struggle is counter revolutionary while they are historically illiterate to the territories they inhabit. This is why pushing potential comrades away from decolonial voices is dangerous as Rainer and MWM are doing it.