The Fourth Revolution

The idea of revolution in the United States looks like a long shot to many, even to the communist true believers out there, but what if an American socialist revolution isn't as far-fetched as it sounds, and is even, dare I say it, very likely? There is a line taken by many Marxist historians (popularized mostly by the Spartacist League, who, despite being ultra-left Trots of the worst kind, write decent history), and even some non-Marxist historians such as Eric Foner, that the United States has had three revolutions already. The first revolution was, of course, the War for Independence, which established the first modern bourgeois democratic republic; the second being the Civil War which ended slavery and ushered in a radical attempt at multi-racial democracy during Reconstruction; and the third being the Civil Rights Movement, which ended Jim Crow and segregation, and resulted in the full maturation of bourgeois democracy with equality under the law, and one person one vote.

If we adhere to this theory, which I do, the United States has more or less had revolutions on a 100 year cycle. The second revolution brought about a near total re-foundation of the American state, while the third brought about, if not quite a re-foundation, a major reconfiguration. While liberals may acknowledge this, they see it as evidence against a fourth revolution; liberals see history as being a straight line deterministic towards progress; when counter-revolution, or periods of reaction do occur, they are treated by liberals as either a hiccup, or a sign that things have gone too far. We can see this line applied often to the first two revolutions; while historian Charles Beard considered the constitution to be an oligarchic reaction to the more democratic Articles of Confederation, liberals treat it as a necessary evil to centralize the state; and Reconstruction is still often spoken of as a "disaster" for giving too much power to "those who weren't ready for it" (your average high school American history textbook repeats this line beloved by Jim Crow ideologues, albeit in more muted terms).

For many liberals, the Civil Rights Movement was the "last" revolution, and until the election of their bete noir Trump, American society was moving on a straight line towards progress (Nixon, Bush, Clintonite neoliberalism, the invasion of Iraq, etc... being treated, again, as hiccups, or necessary evils) that culminated in the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in 2008. Or, as liberal Saint Obama misquoted Dr. King, while his administration was bombing an unprecedented number of countries at one time, the "arc of the moral universe... bends towards justice". That Donald Trump was elected president is a major crisis for the liberal establishment, because it shatters their narrative of deterministic progress, and once again opens up the mainstream conversation to the possibility of revolutionary change. The Civil Rights Movement was supposed to have "solved" all of America's problems, so what is going on?

That periods of revolutionary change are usually followed by periods of intense reaction comes as no surprise to Marxists, who, unlike liberals, are able to analyze history in a dialectical and materialist manner. If we treat the election of Trump as the ultimate reaction against the Civil Rights Movement, that only shows the inadequacy and shortcomings of said movement. For all of its major changes, most of them were on paper, and didn't threaten the capitalist state; the latter adapted. In the place of Jim Crow capitalism, we now have "intersectional" capitalism, with an ever expanding rainbow of a ruling class, and an ever more alienated working class turning to either apathy, or outright reaction. This shows the necessity of socialist revolution, and such a revolution can only be led by a communist party armed with Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. The events of the past two years have only vindicated Marxism-Leninism, as an increasingly bold far-right movement stages more audacious campaigns and attacks, and have only been beaten back to some degree through counter-intimidation.

To sum up the discussion so far, a fourth American revolution looks likely; the bourgeois democratic state has reached the limit to which it can bend. There isn't going to be Nordic style social democracy in the epicenter of global capitalist power, because even such a small concession would be giving up too much power. Look at how the ruling class has fought at every turn against Obamacare, a neoliberal, market-driven form of "universal" health care. Bernie Sanders isn't happening. We need a communist party, there just isn't one yet. The main challenge is that the American left is in its own process of re-foundation, having been eviscerated by neoliberalism, identity politics, and a constant tailing of the Democratic Party. So far, no grouping (they can't really be called parties) has been able to formulate a correct position analyzing American history and its revolutionary prospects.

The American working class is hardly revolutionary, and is, in many cases, conservative and nationalistic, especially the "White Working Class". The Roseanne revival curled the blood of many liberals, aghast to find the once liberal Conners have become Trump supporters. Except the Conners didn't change, what passes as the "left" changed. Patriotism is a potent force among the American working class, and to ignore it, or to take a knee-jerk anti-Americanism position is political suicide. This is not to suggest leftists should embrace American nationalism, but we also have to be careful to separate the American state from the American nation and the American people. With the exception of Puerto Rico, Guam, and other nations under American colonial occupation, separatism has ceased to play any kind of significant role in American radical politics. However, because the idea of a socialist revolution in the United States appears to be so remote, some leftists have embraced the idea of just destroying the American state altogether without thought of what would come next. Usually the proponents of "let chaos reign" are the ones who would be the least affected by it, i.e. petite bourgeois liberals who like to "play" "revolution". Should such a scenario come to pass, it would be an unmitigated disaster for the "marginalized" they claim to champion.

For socialism to triumph in the US, revolutionaries must believe in it, and build their organizations with the conviction that they can actually win. America may appear to be invincible to the outside world, but like all empires, the cracks are building up. To believe that things will just stay this way, and that there is no possibility for transformation is a liberal idea, not a Marxist one. While the American state may not have the history of constant re-foundation like, say, France has, its upheavals tend to be far more significant in scope and impact. There is no material reason to indicate that this will not continue to be so. For victory, we must embrace a politics of victory that centers the working class as its revolutionary vanguard.

The Anti-LARPer Manifesto

This past week, screenshots of a private chat between well-known YouTube Marxist The Finnish Boleshevik, and a 16 year old girl emerged, in which FinBol describes in graphic detail his grotesque fantasy of raping this underage young woman. There is a common thread among these YouTube "Marxists" who have a love for sexual deviance and degeneracy like Jason Unruhe, Matt Florence, Pierre Tru-dank, et all: they are LARPers. For those unfamiliar with the term, LARP stands for Live Action Role Play. It's basically Dungeons and Dragons in real life with foam swords, but it can also be applied to a certain type of bad praxis; i.e. talking a lot and doing little. Given the fractured state of the revolutionary left in the United States (to the extent that a revolutionary left actually exists), and in many cases, the western world in general, it should come as no surprise there has been a proliferation of "Marxist" LARPers; self-proclaimed leftists who (literally) wave the red flag, and make numerous YouTube videos about how Stalin did nothing wrong, but are unable to engage in any meaningful way with workers in their own real world community. For "Marxists" like the aforementioned, Marxism is not a guide to action, but a means to gain an identity (and be an edgelord).

Other types of LARPers should be familiar to those who have spent any time on the left: Third Worldists like the Red Guards who publish incomprehensible screeds on how first world workers are parasites; Trots who show up at every vaguely progressive event selling newspapers; keyboard cult leaders with authoritarian fantasies who are obsessed with demanding ideological purity and absolute obedience; that one guy who goes everyone with a print-out portrait of Bashar Al-Assad pinned to his shirt, handing out fliers on why we need to "defend" the Taliban; third world petite-bourgeois students who love queer theory and chose kissing the ass of western academia over working with revolutionary movements in their home countries.

I could go on. Because of the modern capitalist state's extraordinary means and ability to coerce, co-opt, and outright repress any nascent revolutionary movement, we are all to some degree LARPers. This is as much a self-criticism as it is a criticism. It is difficult, if not impossible, to envision a socialist revolution in the west, let alone in the United States, without some kind of major outside support. But this is not an excuse to do nothing, and wallow in nihilism and cynicism. Any amount of education and engagement will help further our goals in the long run, even if immediate tangible results are minimal or non-existent. The following are some guidelines to help avoid the pitfalls of LARPing. Most of these are developed based on my own firsthand experiences and investigations, and should in no way be considered comprehensive or definitive.

• As the great African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral said, "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories." There is a tendency to get over-excited when discussing revolutionary theory and practice, and often it falls into the camp of romanticism. Building a viable revolutionary socialist party is hard work, and will not happen overnight. Potential comrades need to know from the start that victory is neither easy nor imminent; treating it as if it is will only attract flakes. Similarly, success must not be treated as a substitute for victory. For example, Socialist Alternative continued to trumpet Kshama Sawant's election to the Seattle city council as a major victory for socialism in the US, even though in the big picture, it meant very little, and the restraints of using bourgeois institutions as anything other than a bully pulpit emerged quickly. Instead of using her election to illustrate these points, they chose the easy way out of treating a small success as a major victory. To their credit, they have made progress in moving in the opposite direction; the SAlt website home page contains not a single article about Sawant.
• Drop the fixation on political correctness and crude identity politics. Sorry, but "queer liberation" is not the future, and attacking workers for using words like "faggot" isn't going to win you points. Political correctness is a product and tool of the ruling class. The overwhelming majority of workers don't have time to worry about if their language meets the standards of blue-haired campus activists. This is not to suggest that misogyny, homophobia, racism, and other reactionary behaviors should be ignored, but behaviors are different from words, and battles need to be picked carefully. Tone policing the single mother janitor who works all night for minimum wage isn't going to win you a comrade, but it may win you a kick in the ass.
• The Beatles may have been reactionary bourgeois popstars, but they were right when they said "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow". Look at the Communist Party of Great Britain-Marxist-Leninist; all they do is show up at rallies with giant Stalin portraits and banners. Save the Stalin and Mao for the initiated. Most people don't care about the Moscow Trials or the Cultural Revolution. They care about making ends meet. By all means, once they've been won over to revolutionary socialism, break out the Little Red Book, but until then, engage with them on their terms, not your terms. When picking material for new recruits, go for the accessible and succinct; for example, Mandel's An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory over the unabridged edition of Capital, or even short video lectures by David Harvey or Richard Wolff. Material that people can engage with when they have a few minutes of free time. There's a reason reformist organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America are growing while more theoretically robust Marxist-Leninist organizations are ossified and stagnating.
• Have a sense of humor. Few things are more alienating than being overly serious and gloomy. There's a tendency among many leftists to look down on humor, and some of that ties in with the fixation on political correctness. Humor isn't politically correct; it's often crude and offensive, but it is an excellent way to present complex ideas in a way that is accessible and engaging (I can't keep emphasizing the need to be engaging enough, it's the foundation of both recruiting and keeping cadre).
• Center women. And by women, I mean humans of the female sex (it's sad that needs to be said). Women are not just oppressed, but straight up exploited, and they bear the brunt of capitalism in a very thorough way. Many leftist organizations remain male dominated, using women as tokens, or as gophers. Denounce pornography and prostitution, and exercise vigilance against sexual harassment; transgressors should be dealt with firmly and swiftly. Since most women are mothers, and perform more labor outside their "official" jobs, there needs to be child care at events so that mothers who don't have the means to arrange it themselves aren't shut out from political activity.
• Read as much material as possible. Having good practice requires good theory, and reading Wikipedia pages isn't enough. And don't limit yourself to just reading Marxist texts, read bourgeois theorists, too. Mao was an expert on all of the major classics of Chinese literature and philosophy; he was able to attack reactionary traditionalism in such a thorough and pointed manner, because he had researched what it was he was attacking. And remember Marx studied under Hegel, who considered the Prussian Catholic absolute monarchy as the ideal form of state. If this sounds like a defense of the well-rounded classical education, that's because it is.

As I've already said, the above suggestions are not meant to be comprehensive or definitive, nor are they listed in any particular order. The main purpose of this piece is to be a conversation starter. If we have any hope of building a socialist future, we need to get serious about how we approach our own practice.