I believe there needs to be multiple "debates" on PatSocs

CITRUS@lemmygrad.ml · 2 years ago

I believe there needs to be multiple "debates" on PatSocs

TheConquestOfBed · edit-2 2 years ago

From Settlers by J. Sakai:

Communism has always had to fight against not only the bourgeoisie, but also the very real opposition of some strata and masses of workers who have become corrupted and reactionary. Thus, the hostility revolutionary trends face here is neither new nor a puzzle for communist theory. In England, South Afrika, etc. the communist forces have had to recognize this opposition. Marx, Engels, Lenin — all emphasized how important this question was. It is an essential part of the world fight against imperialism.

To begin with, our criticism of the historically negative role of the settler masses here is no more pointed than Friedrich Engels’s statements a century ago about the English working class. Communists have never believed that the working class was some “holy,” religious object that must be enshrined away from scientific investigation. Lenin on his own part several times purposefully reminded his European comrades that the original “proletariat” — of Imperial Rome — did not work, but was supported by the surpluses of slave labor. As the lowest free class of Roman citizens, their only duty was to father new soldiers for the Roman Legions (which is why they were called “proletarii” in Latin) while they lived off government subsidies. The political consciousness and material class role of the masses of any given nation cannot be assumed from historic generalizations, but must be discovered by social investigation and scientific analysis.

You are all aware of this and have no shame in calling out liberal-reactionary elements of the “Left.” But we need to maintain an awareness that conservatism and racism are permanently interlinked. In an example of historical analysis of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations), we don’t have a critique of historical Unions themselves so much as the reactionary splitting of the proletariat perpetrated by a trade union such that it was eventually easily co-opted by national interests:

[T]he CIO did not move to oppose open, rigid segregation in the Northern factories until the U.S. government told them to during World War II. Until that time the CIO supported existing segregation, while accepting those Afrikans as union members who were already in the plants. This was only to strengthen settler unionism’s power on the shop floor. During its initial 1935–1941 organizing period the CIO maintained the existing oppressor nation/oppressed nations job distribution: settler workers monopolized the skilled crafts and the mass of semi-skilled production line jobs, while colonial workers had the fewer unskilled labor and broom-pushing positions. For its first seven years the CIO not only refused to help Afrikan workers fight Jim Crow, but even refused to intervene when they were being driven out of the factories. Even as the U.S. edged into World War II many corporations were intensifying the already tight restrictions on Afrikan labor. Now that employment was picking up with the war boom, it was felt not only that Euro-Amerikans should have the new jobs but that Afrikans were not yet to be trusted at the heart of the imperialist war industry.

Now I’d like to interrupt with a quote from Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis:

In 1899, when Susan B. Anthony urged the defeat of the anti-Jim Crow resolution, Black people massively denounced President McKinley’s encouragement of white supremacy. The Massachusetts branch of the Colored National League charged that McKinley had been apologetically silent during the reign of terror in Phoenix, South Carolina, and that he failed to intervene when Black people were massacred in Wilmington, North Carolina. During his trip South, they told McKinley, …you preached patience, industry, moderation to your long-suffering black fellow citizens, and patriotism, jingoism and imperialism to your white ones.

Back to Settlers, we can see the effects racism within an org has: the white-dominated reactionary elements of the AFL (of which the CIO was once a part) took the center stage of national politics and were thus integrated into the patriotism of U.S. Hegemony:

The important effect of the pro-CIO national strategy can be seen if we compare the ’30s to earlier periods. Whenever popular struggles against business grew too strong to be put down by local police, then the government would send in the National Guard or U.S. Army. Armed repression was the drastic but brutally decisive weapon used by the bourgeoisie. And the iron fist of the U.S. government not only inspired terror but also promoted patriotism to split the settler ranks. The U.S. Army broke the great 1877 and 1894 national railway strikes. The coast-to-coast repressive wave, led by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, against the IWW during 1917–1924 effectively destroyed that “Un-American” movement — even without Army troops. Yet no such attempt was made during the even more turbulent 1930s. President Roosevelt himself turned to CIO leaders, in the words of the New York Times, “for advice on labor problems rather than to any old-line AFL leader.”

There was a heavy split in the capitalist class, with many major corporations viewing the CIO as the Red Menace in their backyards, and desperately using lockouts, company unions, and police violence to stop them. Not all, however. Years before the CIO came into being, Gerald Swope of General Electric had told AFL President William Green that the company would rather deal with one industrial union rather than fifteen different craft unions. And when the Communist Party–led United Electrical Workers-CIO organized at GE, they found that the company was glad to make a deal.

Similar to the CIO, we can see similar shifts in the character of the early NAACP as they prioritized patriotism and distanced themselves from communism, thus becoming the liberal institution we know today. In Hammer and Hoe by Robin D. G. Kelley, we see the proletarian black members of org fight to be on the side of the communists, but are rebuffed by institutional strategists:

When the NAACP board of directors attributed the verdict to ILD [an early American Communist org] tactics, Walter White and the association were attacked from all corners of the nation’s black populace—local NAACP branches, newspaper editors, churches, and several radical organizations harshly criticized the association’s national leadership. Practically overnight, the NAACP reversed its original statement and agreed to aid the ILD and raise money for the Scottsboro defense.

Birmingham branch leaders did not oppose reentering the Scottsboro case, but many cringed at the idea of working directly with the ILD. Critical of the decision, McPherson wrote to White, “I am afraid that the association has been too hasty to re-enter the Scottsboro cases without first working out a definite agreement with that rabied crowd. You see, coming as it does like a thunder-bolt out of a clear sky, it puts us in a bad plight right here in the heart of the trouble. I urge you that an agreeable working arrangement be definitely formed separating the two organizations so as not to embarrass us.” Birmingham branch leaders immediately issued a press release explaining the NAACP’s sudden change of heart with respect to the ILD. Decrying the Party’s revolutionary goals and declaring their own patriotism in unambiguous terms (“We are American citizens, Red, White and Blue”), Birmingham NAACP leaders argued that intervention was necessary “for the purpose of controling [sic] and restricting [the ILD’s] activities and propaganda to sane and dignified methods in the future.”

This is not a new strategy. The relationship between patriotism and racism is very old in the Americas. From Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois we get a description of the ineffective character of the U.S. Democratic party:

The opposition of the Democrats to Negro suffrage was not clearly expressed. Evidently, the tide in favor of democracy had risen so high in the country that as a party the Democrats did not dare oppose it. The party, therefore, would not come out flatly in opposition to Negro suffrage but simply declared that suffrage was a question to be settled by the states. Twenty-two state Democratic conventions were held in 1868. Eleven of these opposed Negro suffrage anywhere. Only the convention of South Carolina in April approved it. Ten other conventions either were silent on the subject or announced their belief that this was a matter of state control. The various state platforms illustrated local Northern thought. California Democrats declared that they “now and always confide in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the white people of the country to administer and control their Government, without the aid of either Negroes or Chinese.”

(PART 1 OF 3)

TheConquestOfBed · edit-2 2 years ago

In fact, the racism inherent to western patriotism goes far far back to the establishment of racismas a concept in the Americas as slave populations slowly but surely Christianized and local mixed-race people began to gain power in Carribean politics. European settlers needed a bulwark against potential slave revolts, so they used patriotism to the mother country as an ideological thread tying white settlers to the nobility and the bourgeoise. From Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue by John D. Garrigus:

Petit did not sensationalize colonial sexuality like later authors would. Nevertheless he was concerned with the consequences of male colonists founding creole families with slave women. It was for this reason, and not to defend slavery, that Petit described racial prejudice as “politically astute.” He acknowledged that some wealthy people of color had settled in France, where their French friends criticized colonists’ scorn for them as chimérique, an absurdity, an illusion. But Petit believed marriage between Europeans and free people of color should be outlawed because of the vile birth of these people, just as respectable French subjects did not marry theatrical players. People of color were worse than actors, because of their relatives in slavery, and their “blood . . . infamous for its inclinations and dangerous for its blackness of character.”

Petit’s racism was not primarily biological, but driven by the need to orient colonial “patriotism” toward France. Later authors argued that whites should scorn free people of color to reinforce the racial basis of slavery. But for Petit, if whites and people of color became too“familiar,” that is, if they established viable families, “creole patriotism” might come to mean imperial autonomy or independence. Though he did not explicitly describe this possibility, he encouraged French administrators to watch the problem carefully:

“But the principal reason to prohibit these matches [between immigrants and free people of color] has to do with the necessity of maintaining, in these sorts of men, the ideas of esteem and respect for white blood with which they must not be allowed to become too familiar, because, were they to develop common interests, the results might be dangerous, even irreparable.”

To add context here: Petit’s quote here is from his book titled Le Patriotisme Américain or “American Patriotism.”

Now to tie this in to the modern era, I will take a quote from The Possessive Investment in Whiteness by George Lipsitz:

The new patriotism arises from deeply felt contradictions in U.S. society. It arbitrates anxieties about changes in gender roles, jobs, communities, and collective identity brought on by deindustrialization and economic restructuring. Narratives of national honor take on increased importance as the practices of transnational corporations make the nation state increasingly powerless to advance the interests of its citizens. Private anxieties about isolation, loneliness, and mortality fuel public spectacles of patriotic identification that promise purposeful and unselfish connection to collective and enduring institutions. The new patriotism serves vital purposes for neoconservative economics and politics, providing psychic reparation for the damage done to individuals and groups by the operation of market principles, while at the same time promoting narcissistic desires for pleasure and power that set the stage for ever more majestic public spectacles and demonstrations of military might.

As stated in multiple quotes above, people of color do not see Western countries (esp America) and their patriotism as worthy ideas but as colonial projects. Modern patriotism only serves to rehabilitate the injustices perpetrated by national institutions. We can expand on this with a snippet from Michael Parenti’s Superpatriotism:

In this country superpatriotism rests on the dubious assumption that the United States is endowed with superior virtue and has a unique history and special place in the world. For the American superpatriot, nationalistic pride, or “Americanism,” is placed above every other public consideration. Whether or not superpatriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, as Dr. Johnson might say, it is a highly emotive force used by political leaders and ordinary citizens to muffle discourse. I think that was what the caller was doing (whether he intended to or not) when asking me if I loved my country. In any case, I would answer his question with another one: What exactly does it mean to love one’s country?

Do we love every street and lane, every hill and dale in America? There are so many sights and sites within the USA to which one might grow attached. Yet most of us have had direct exposure to relatively few parts of this nation’s vast territory since we lack the time and money to make that meandering trip across its great continental expanse. And what of all the natural beauty in other countries throughout the world? Would I be less a patriot if I am forced to conclude that there are parts of Ireland and New Zealand that are even more beautiful than the lovely sights of our Pacific Northwest region? Would I be wanting in patriotism if I felt Paris to be more captivating than San Francisco? or the Piazza Navona in Rome more endearing than Rockefeller Center in New York?

Perhaps love of country means loving the American people. But even the most gregarious among us know only a tiny portion of the US populace, that vast aggregate of diverse ethnic, religious, and class groups. In any case, any number of superpatriots feel no love at all for certain of their compatriots whose lifestyles, beliefs, ethnicity, or lowly economic status they find repugnant.

It might be that we can love whole peoples in the abstract, feeling a common attachment because we are all Americans. But what actually is so particularly lovable about Americans, even in the abstract? Although many Americans are fine and likable, some are not admirable at all. Among the compatriots who fail to win my affection are ruthless profiteers, corporate swindlers, corrupt and self-serving leaders, bigots, sexists, violent criminals, and rabidly militaristic superpatriots.

Maybe our superpatriots love this country for its history. One would doubt it, since so much of US history is evidently unknown to them: the struggle for free speech that has continued from early colonial times down to this day; the fierce fights for collective bargaining and decent work conditions; the long campaigns to extend the franchise to all citizens including propertyless workers and women; the struggles to abolish slavery, end racial segregation, and extend civil rights, to establish free public education, public health services, environmental and consumer protections, and occupational safety, and to impose a progressive income tax and end wars of aggression, and other such issues of peace and social justice.

Here certainly is a history that can make one feel proud of one’s country and love the valiant people who battled for political and economic democracy But many superpa-triots are wretchedly ignorant of this history, especially since so little of it is taught in the schools. How unfortunate, for it would add more substance to their love of country.

Also largely untaught is the darker side of our history. What is there to love about the extermination of Native American Indian nations, a bloodletting that extended over four centuries along with the grabbing of millions of acres of their lands? There is nothing lovable about the systemic kidnapping and enslavement of millions of Africans; the many lynchings and murders of the segregationist era; the latter-day assassinations of Black Panther Party members and other political dissidents; the stealing of half of Mexico (today’s Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and a portion of Colorado); the grabbing of Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba; the blood-drenched conquest of the Philippines; and the military interventions and wars of aggression against scores of other countries.

(PART 2 OF 3)

TheConquestOfBed · 2 years ago

These sorts of patriotic splits are dangerous to workers parties (esp in western countries) and can weaken them to the often simultaneous rise of fascist movements. From Fascism in Germany: How Hitler Destroyed the World’s Most Powerful Labour Movement by Robert Black:

The transition from what Trotsky called the SPD’s ‘legitimate patriotism to their own party’ to a conception of ‘national’ socialism and finally, after 4 August 1914, to a position of national defence, was a complex process which had its roots not only in the treachery of leaders, but the evolution of an entire stratum of the German working class:

“If we leave aside the hardened bureaucrats, careerists, parliamentary sharpers, and political crooks in general, the social patriotism of the rank-and-file Social Democrat was derived precisely from the belief in building German socialism. It is impossible to think that hundreds of thousands of rank and file Social Democrats… wanted to defend the Hohenzollerns or the bourgeoisie. No. They wanted to protect German industry, the German railways and highways, German technology and culture, and especially the organisations of the German working class, as the necessary and sufficient national prerequisite for socialism.”

The great tragedy was that their devotion to the goal of a future socialist Germany was cruelly and cynically exploited by both their class enemies and their own leaders to serve the ends of an all too real imperialist present.

Thus workers read in the German trade union journal Correspondenzblatt that:

“…the policy of 4 August accords with the most vital interests of the trade unions; it keeps all foreign invasion at bay, it protects us against the dismemberment of the German lands, against the destruction of flourishing branches of the German economy, and against an adverse outcome of the war, which would saddle us with reparations for decades to come.”

The political responsibility for such a line, which undoubtedly found an echo amongst wide layers of trade unionists in the early period of the war at least, lay largely with the Kautsky ‘centre’ which had mis-educated entire generations of workers to believe that patriotism and an evasive attitude towards the struggle for power could coexist with the SPD’s formal adherence to socialist internationalism and the Marxist theory of the state. For as the preceding chapter attempts to show, the seeds which ripened into the fruit of 4 August were sown in the period of party expansion which followed the lapsing of the anti-socialist laws in 1890. When confronted by the magnitude of their betrayal, the more sophisticated party leaders attempted to evade their own responsibility before the German and international movement - one they had solemnly accepted at a succession of Socialist International congresses - by blaming the working class for a situation which they themselves had helped to create.

TheConquestOfBed · 2 years ago

Adding my own analysis to this: trade unionism is making a comeback in the US (particularly in warehousing and service industries) and it has an anti-racist and pro-lgbt character based on what I’ve read about their efforts. This is both a good place to be in and a very tenuous-to-bad place to be in. We can see the rise of white nationalism in response to local community organizing (often around social democrats or democratic socialists as in the Weimar Republic).

In this case there are ideological distractions from both the “left” and right. As you’re all aware, pro-NATO “leftists” seek to co-opt the movement through liberal-style idpol and prevent on-the-ground movements from taking on an internationalist character. My opinion is that modern right-wing patsocs are part of a strategy to distance the largely white middle-class marxist leninists (there are ML PoC obviously, even some black/indigenous orgs, but that’s not how MLs are perceived as a subculture) from the lower rungs of the proletariat who know on-the-ground strategy but not history. I think this is so that workers parties get straight to being co-opted and reactionary before the on-the-ground movements even have a chance to organize around them (unlike past movements where the reactionary orgs were platformed out of on-the-ground movements). In this way, on-the-ground organizers will become alienated from a white middle class communism that doesn’t have space for them, and once isolated they will be easier to pick off.

This is why whenever Patsocs come up, I’m critical of their “MAGA are just misunderstood” takes. MAGA proles are the engine of white supremacy and focusing on them and not the very real organizing happening among poor workers, BIPOC, and LGBT people is putting energy in the wrong place. The revolutionary energy growing in the west is forming around people the MAGA-right wants to exterminate. Look at the conservative list of acceptable targets and you’ll find those people the most active in the streets lighting junk on fire and getting their co-workers into union votes.

Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.ml · 2 years ago

Thank you for this comrade, we can’t let these patsoc opportunists confuse the issue, and think that reactionary “patriots” can bring about socialism. If socialism ever does come to an imperial core country, it will be the mostly non-white, anti racist and unpatriotic city dwellers, for whom the state has done no favors, who bring it about.

TheConquestOfBed · edit-2 2 years ago

I wouldn’t immediately discredit poor countryfolk. Outside of the big coastal cities, they can often tend to inhabit the same spaces as poc both physically and socioeconomically. The challenge is in creating a coalition where they see themselves as being on the same side (for example, if they all work on the same factory line or in the same big box store).

My main contention is with the middle class, as they tend to have more objections to strategy when it comes down to it, having been bought off by the bourgeoise with a single-family home in a “quiet” neighborhood and two SUVs. A lot of the libs people here shit on every day tend to have a very middle class perspective of civility. And the middle class MAGA are entrenched not just by the aesthetics of conservatives gesturing at them but also by the relatively cushy lifestyle that they feel they’ve “earned.” The poorest whites, by contrast, can feel just as abandoned by the system as poc, but they turn toward conservatism mainly due to the vague gestures as protectionism from further poverty, which still has class aristocratic character, but can be leveraged if they have exposure to cultures outside of tiny monoethnic country towns.

As far as general strategy for white people, socialists should be focusing on downwardly mobile urban libs and poor suburban conservatives who’ve recently moved from the country looking for work in the city, because both of these groups are currently having their worlds rocked by exposure to people different from them and their own finanical precarity. The first problem is that they both require extremely different emotional skillsets to convince of your position in discussions. The second problem is that getting them to a place where they won’t be reactionary can take months or years, and even after being de-radicalized they can still shift the movement toward themselves rather than the proletariat as a whole. It’s just something that requires attention and consideration.

Rafael_Luisi@lemmygrad.ml · 2 years ago

“Lenin on his own part several times purposefully reminded his European comrades that the original “proletariat” — of Imperial Rome — did not work, but was supported by the surpluses of slave labor. As the lowest free class of Roman citizens, their only duty was to father new soldiers for the Roman Legions (which is why they were called “proletarii” in Latin) while they lived off government subsidies.”

I want to point out how this view by marx and engels was wrong, parentti’s book “the murder of julius Caesar” talks about rome with an materialistic point of view and how the information about rome was tainted by the burgeoise intelingentsia, on how the people that writed about rome and the roman people where rich aristocratic assholes, that never worked hard on their lifes and aways looked at the working class on general with disgust. This was an misunderstanding and an lack of proper information by marx and engels and should not be seen as fact, but as how the burgeoise manipulation of midia gos beyond our own ages, and how they will make you sheer for the opressors, and opress the opressed.

TheConquestOfBed · edit-2 2 years ago

That’s fair and I will admit it’s a bad or mired example. I don’t think the overall point of “the proletariat is not infallible” is invalid, however. It’s a logical conclusion that doesn’t necessarily need an ancient example to justify a list of modern examples with far more records.