I disagree with Haz on a lot of things, but Haz’s statement that revolutionary warfare is more than a mere “class war” within a vacuum and also has national-liberation aspects due to the globalistic nature of imperialism is pretty valid
I disagree with Haz on a lot of things, but Haz’s statement that revolutionary warfare is more than a mere “class war” within a vacuum and also has national-liberation aspects due to the globalistic nature of imperialism is pretty valid
So my opinion on the whole “patriotic socialist” thing is that it’s basically a few good insights stretched far beyond what they can reasonably support. Haz and Maupin, to their credit, saw something that nobody else in the American left was really cognizant of: namely, that since the 1970s there has been a confluence of Trotskyism with orthodox Marxist-Leninism, so that a whole lot of “tankiesm” in the US is actually revisionist. (Sam Marcy and the Workers’ World Party, who tried to downplay the differences between Trotskyism and the historical practice of actually existing socialist states, is a big reason for this shift). Thus, a whole lot of American communists actually hold, consciously or unconsciously, that Europe and the US are where genuine revolution actually happens; socialist countries on the peripheries are to be supported because they are, under the calculus of liberalism, “underprivileged,” not because they represent a genuine path forward for humanity. This is basic dilution of Leninist thought.
However, having recognized this, CPI, Infrared etc. made the leap of assuming that the entire American left from McCarthyism onward was unsalvageable, and that the only way forward was to adopt tactics used by the CPUSA during the 1930s. (Because of their emphasis on Black nationhood and building parallel political infrastructure, the Black Panthers are often regarded by patsocs as a successor to the 1930s CPUSA). Thus you get the current reworking of “Socialism is 20th Century Americanism,” and other attempts to create a left-wing American nationalism – the idea being that since it almost worked before, it has a good chance of working now. I’ve said before, and will say it again, that I’m convinced neither Haz nor Maupin is really sincere in their patriotism. Certain things they let slip from time to time betray it: Maupin listing the crimes of the American government, Haz stating that it was during the War on Terror that he recognized the true nihilistic essence of American culture, etc. It’s a tactic, and not necessarily a good one.
The Black Panthers never expresse any sympathy towards american patriotism, quite the opposite. They became staunch internationalists and linked the struggle in the third world to their own againt american government.
And about the Trotskyst problem in america they have denounced, I dont think this is good reasons to give them any kind of space anywhere, even a broken clock is right twice a day and based on the texts on his substack, it seems this is the case. Appealing to american nationalism is dangerous because it is an idea founded on the genocide and exploitation that is a product of the american bourgeoisie. Nothing will change that, if Haz is really interested in fighting againt his country bourgeoisie, maybe he shouldnt be upholding their symbols of oppression
I agree, but we have to face the real root issue – namely, that the current US left is deeply corrupt and compromised on all levels, and that there is no significant communist movement in America that isn’t revisionist. (EDIT: maybe PSL? But they also come out of the Workers’ World Party). That the whole thing is deeply sick can be seen in the way it veers between rightism and ultraleftism, and sometimes (in the case of Haz and his Khmer Rouge fanboyism) manages to combine the two. Maybe a real crisis will bring out some kind of synthesis with actual revolutionary potential. As of now, I don’t see it happening.