Every experience I've ever had with a major American org, be it PSL, DSA, SALT, CPUSA has left a profoundly disappointing impression. They uniformly have no militancy, no coherent program for building power, and no pattern of success. Often, their strategy invariably finds itself expresses in mindlessly tailing the activist cause du jour, recruiting from liberal protests, then creating their own nonviolent liberal protests and book clubs to fundraise off of ad infinitum. Usually their electoral strategy involves endorsing the Democrats or trying to launch a presidential run for some figure with no national profile who receives 0.015% of the vote. At best they'll make a mild contribution to local tenant organizing on a micro scale. At worst, they're fed-filled cults run by sex pests. Anarchists, who lack the political organizing capabilities to accomplish anything of note, usually somehow lap these orgs in actual militant activity. At least they're capable of creating some minor property damage.
If this pattern isn't isolated to a single org but seems to infect the whole field of them, DSA, CPUSA, PSL, and so forth, then it's indicative of a structural problem. These structural problems of systemic uselessness seem to be pervasive well beyond just the United States. What's going on here? How do we fix the formula?
Genuinely, would we have better results in these kinds of conditions if our orgs were fully underground to begin with? I suspect that one advantage the anarchists have is the lack of a publically visible, legally sanctioned, easy to target organizational structure. Every fed knows the leadership of the PSL, or the DSA, and anyone who's ever paid dues, so there's a very strong incentive to stay safely within legal boundaries. Infiltration and cooption is painfully easy. On the other hand, the anarchist model is also obviously a failure, given that they simply function along lines of pure spontaneity without much coherent organization to begin with.
How dig ourselves out of this common trap, and the resulting malaise?
The thing I don't understand about these critiques (even though they're not necessarily incorrect) is what exactly the alternative being proposed is.
>no coherent program for building power
What does this mean? What separates a coherent program for building power from an incoherent one? Is it not a coherent program to seek out sites of class conflict, intervene on the side of the workers, and use this as an opportunity to recruit, educate, and organize? If so, then how does this not look like "tailism" if you're showing up or even helping to organize strikes or Palestine demonstrations to do just that? What should be the communist response to such organic outbreaks of class struggle? Ignore them? Organize parallel actions?
>trying to launch a presidential run for some figure with no national profile who receives 0.015% of the vote
Electoralism in liberal countries was endorsed by both Marx and Lenin as a means to spread the message of the communist cause and attract attention. I don't see why it has a downside.
>recruiting from liberal protests
"Liberal protests" are often class struggle in embryonic form. If a bunch of libs are appalled by US imperialist policy like we see with Gaza, why is it a bad thing to participate in this and take the opportunity to recruit from people already opposed to aspects of the ruling order?
>Anarchists, who lack the political organizing capabilities to accomplish anything of note, usually somehow lap these orgs in actual militant activity.
Militancy for its own sake is pointless. It's only effective where your organization has the capacity to actually pull it off without destroying itself, either by attracting repression or alienating the people you're trying to organize.
The depressing truth is that there is no alternative to the basic strategy of using legal action and embedding yourself into existing sites of struggle. A large enough organization could begin to direct that struggle and create new flashpoints, but until you reach that point you need to seek out the grievances of the workers, not dictate what they ought to be. If anything these premature attempts to direct class struggle without the necessary clout only makes things worse. Trots where I live try this shit and it's destroyed their relations with organized labour to the point where most unions won't even tolerate them on picket lines.
>>2305409>what's the alternative?Is there a good justification for not having underground orgs, or not having some kind of dual structure with an underground component? Obviously, the whole aim of the organization is to overthrow the government. This the expectation set by the historical examples of the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, whatever revolutions and the choice to call yourself "ML". Adopting a strategy that has to slavishly adhere to legality in the light of day under harsh surveillance will obviously be an obstacle for operational flexibility and in the long run will never develop the capacity to overthrow a government. This does not, I should emphasize, mean literally becoming an adventurist gang like the Red Army Faction. But wouldn't it maybe be useful in some regards to have an organization that doesn't have to constantly toe the line of legality, to the point where we have to denounce and shrink away from any spontaneity in press releases to keep the leadership out of legal trouble?
Legal organizations get no attention because they are perceived as useless, and tailist, and opportunist, and people who join them quickly realize that the idea that the fucking PSL could ever in a billion years overthrow a government like Castro is completely asinine, and so they don't stick around. If you're going to do legally sanctioned liberal praxis, you will get better results participating the "progressive" wing of your local Democratic Party and your local NGO.
>>2305440Underground orgs can support illegal activities in their rhetoric. Underground orgs can provide material support for illegal activities. Underground orgs can perform activities that skirt the boundary of legality. Underground orgs can perform illegal activities.
Is it any coincidence that most successful socialist revolutions have historically happened under repressive dictatorships that shut liberal release valves and forced political organizing underground, at least to various degrees, very frequently during periods of war and instability? It seems that leninism only seems to enjoy success in an underground extralegal atmosphere, even.
>>2305505Next you should call me a jew
>>2305509>Continued refusal to lie downJacking off to the world spirit a bit more, eh?
> There is no meaningful “proletarian” population in the west, hope this helpsProletarian isn’t a moral, national, or racial category, hope this helps
>>2305512African but not African-American
Also Russian
You need to come from a proletarian nationality to be a proletarian
Technically people who have 3/4ths proletarians blood count as well
>>2305518Time to read stupid bitch
Nobody likes your sarcasm which only highlights your illiteracy
Your "seen it all" attitude is pathetic. Illiterate online stupid bitch
>>2305467
>You can go to a PSL meeting and find not a single proletariat among them, just rainbow haired freaks
Doing what? If they're working as baristas, or even trying to scratch a living web camming ,despite what that clown H*z ,for example, says ,they're part of the proletariat. Surplus value is going to the coffee chain ,or web cam platform.
>and trust fund kiddies who think communism is a massive orgy where nobody has to work
Trust find kiddies already don't have to work. So what should they be doing with their spare time? At least if they're joining PSL or whatever then they're not doing Hegelian egirls, or there was one even worse "Rachel haywire" rightwing art ho projects.
On the left, there's only one trust fund kiddie, Ferdie Chambers, who through being such an annoying bastard that he's probably done more harm than good.
Personally if I had an unearned income I wouldn't get involved in politics. I am motivated by what Nietzsche calls ressentiment, though it's not really ressentiment if you know that's what it is.
>>2305526If that publication argues something akin to
>Proles don’t exist when iPhones are cheap>Muh industryAnd
>Communism is when porkchop nationalism in Africa/Asia/LatAm “Submit to your new masters (presumed) white boi” I just have no interest reading it
Do you really expect everyone to read some random cunt with a blog?
>>2305541Unironically yes
You’re not approaching this from a nationalist resentment/oppression olympics framing; proletarian is a moral classification referring to the meek whom shall inherit the Earth as Christ proclaimed
>>2305549Golden billion isn’t a Marxist term, it’s a petit bourgeois nationalist term reflecting the embittered outlook of the former losers of yesteryear’s capitalist era; its only purpose is to sate the nationalist appetites of both overt reactionaries outside the West and self-loathing disempowered baby leftists within the West while sewing resentment between different populations of workers.
It’s on you to justify the extreme wrecker behavior of bourgeois nationalists who openly proclaim their own intentions to subordinate proletarian internationalism to the geopolitical interests of the contemporary national states.
>>2305536>The PSL and the ACP are both irrelevant compatible left parties I'm not in the PSL. (Or the ACP, obviously.) It's just that was what we're discussing ITT.
>and your life has been wasted not even understanding what you bicker aboutIt's true a large percentage of my hours on earth have been wasted.
>>2305567Read the articles
>>2305566I'm better than you. They could never get me with glowtard parties like you subhuman retards. You don't even deserve to be warned
>>2305582Damn dude, you just figured out America’s socialist parties are shit?
Don’t worry though, they retardedly shill for bourgeois nationalism, errrr kill all proles errrr I mean multipolarity so it’s all good, you should be in the clear to join up actually, believe me you can definitely find a US cult errrr party that holds to the “genocide all Americans”
cope line revolutionary line
>>2305549Isn't it interesting how you can see the same story with Israelis when you call out the actual reality of the conflict, the responsibility they carry for causing it and the necessity for their destruction/abolition they'll immediately start screeching about how you are a horrific anti-Semite who wants to genocide them, because that's the only way they can think
These guys think the exact same way, just for the west at large. Imperialist dogs
>>2305613You didn't read you stupid bitch hahahahaha why do you even keep trying
Why does this schizo think he can guess LOL
You don't know the shit from the bottom of your shoe you stupid little retarded bitch
>>2305614Man you are very emotionally attached to the idea of genociding American workers for being less poor than African workers
Tho I guess your actual stance is that you want to murder the 3% of Americans that identify as socialists because like three don’t shill for whatever tinpot African dictator gets your pasty suburban dick hard?
>>2305642Honestly I think your post shows such poverty of thought and expression that anons aren't going to bother reading articles you recommend.
Which doesn't matter! No one knows who anyone else is on here.
Have a nice time outside. 🌞
>>2305758>bitch>raped >stupid little bitches. >I would just hate for people like you to spend your whole life getting raped >slapfights over things you didn't read >rapes.>gigacorporapebot9000 factory >Zionist democrat candidate.well the DSA have been criticised for sheepdogging people into the democratic party.
But The psl ran a couple of candidates for president and VP. Mostly for publicity, they didn't expect to win.
And jackson hinckle of the acp got elected dog catcher somewhere.
So already that shows these organisations aren't the same.
no one's going to read your articles. sort out your rhetorical style so it's something people want to read ,and paraphrase some articles if you think they've got some points
>>2305515I read the PSL series articles years ago before schizowar removed them. Skimming through the archived articles, they're just as schizotarded now as they were then.
> Muh John Kiriakou and muh Ray McGovern were in le CIA< They're whistleblowers who left the glowies pears ago, but whistleblowers are le bad because they don't name names and want le death to amerika. Also Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are le bad.> Gene Sharpian nonviolence is le domestic counterinsurgency. Adventuretardism is the only way.> Veterans for Peace is le bad because the vets killed millions of le wholesome keanu chungus thirdoids. They're kolonial kops whose opinions hold no special merit.A million tiny schizos is thirdoid drivel. I hope John Kiriakou spirits you away to a CIA blacksite and tortures you Greek style while Brian Becker watches and jacks off from his cuck chair. Long live the immortal science of Marxism Leninism Sharpism!
>>2305958Kid's stuff.
Tho I suppose we are on on imageboard.
>>2305382And what do you have, anon?
Dumbass retard.
>>2305467>You can go to a PSL meeting and find not a single proletariat among themso what do you find? bourgeoisie? source.
>>2305382>Every experience I've ever had with a major American org, be it PSL, DSA, SALT, CPUSA has left a profoundly disappointing impression.the material conditions are not always the best, so?
>They uniformly have no militancy, no coherent program for building power, and no pattern of success. that's not entirely their fault. they are not part of the ruling class, they have 0 influence in politics to make their power growth, and they deserve a bit of forgiveness.
the only times they couldn't deserve forgiveness is when they side with bourgeoisie figures,
if that were the case as what happens with the dsa.
and pattern of success? what criteria are you using to define "success"? in what case is this a reflection of the US material conditions?
>Often, their strategy invariably finds itself expresses in mindlessly tailing the activist cause du jour, recruiting from liberal protests, then creating their own nonviolent liberal protests and book clubs to fundraise off of ad infinitum.what else can they recruit if the main thing there is are liberals?
>Usually their electoral strategy involves endorsing the Democrats or trying to launch a presidential run for some figure with no national profile who receives 0.015% of the vote.that's not the case for the PSL, fyi.
>At best they'll make a mild contribution to local tenant organizing on a micro scale. At worst, they're fed-filled cults run by sex pests. Anarchists, who lack the political organizing capabilities to accomplish anything of note, usually somehow lap these orgs in actual militant activity. At least they're capable of creating some minor property damage. only the dsa is this way.
on the other hand, anarchists won't get a political revolution.
>Genuinely, would we have better results in these kinds of conditions if our orgs were fully underground to begin with?the more really revolutionary they are, the more underground they are. the PSL would never allow to enter if you are a prospect directly financed by the usaid, for example.
>How dig ourselves out of this common trap, and the resulting malaise?honestly, these parties, except the treacherous party of the dsa, will depend of their material conditions. debating here will result in idealistic outcomes.
not that they don't deserve criticism.
but real analysis requires real data, real data requires direct contact with them in their forums, and presential activities:
What has to be done a la Americana.
>>2305498>Dugin’s>muh duginyou are obsessed.
to being with, the golden billion is correct, though is the capitalists.
to conclude, that theory wasn't coined by dugin or whatsoever.
he doesn't even know what's that.
>>2305515these are some good ass reading material.
unfortunately, radlibs won't touch it.
>>2306171How do we feel about underground cell networks?
Doesn't necessarily need to be for violent adventurist purposes.
>>2305467>>2305492I'm not sure I fully agree. While I don't doubt that proles here live better than proles in the third world, you have to remember that
1. Conditions are worsening here as our WW2 momentum wears off
2. Wealth distribution is insanely uneven here in a way that I'm not even sure I can put into words.
People will post photos of the "third world", and they don't really look that different than a lot of the places here do. Go to a city like LA or Detroit and be prepared to see homeless people, decaying infrastructure, and crime around every corner.
Beyond that, even if we
were all super privilaged I think it's pretty idealist to say "the US could
never become proletarianized".
>>2305528I think you have an overly narrow, definition-based view of class. By your logic, communism isn't possible in Russia either.
Rhe important thing isn't that someone is completely immiserated, let alone that they fit into an exact definition of class written about 200 years ago, it's that they're miserable enough that they feel the need to overthrow the current state of things. I know multiple people who work three jobs in order to get by; why couldn't they be driven to action?
>>2305549You might have missed it, but
>>2305528 outright said
>The only way you’ll ever get a proletariat in the imperial core is through prolonged occupation and restructuring over a period of decades, possibly centuries>>2305593Internationalism isn't a Trot concept, it's a Marxist concept generally. The MLs like to downplay it, what with "socialism in one country", but in this specific regard, Trotsky was indeed closer to Marx and Engels than Stalin.
>>2305664Which Americans?
>>2305666The CIA knows to attack on multiple fronts. It's not trying to convince people of any specific ideology, it's trying to create as many divisions as possible so that its enemies keep fighting eachother rather than themselves.
>>2305758I'm not reading your articles because, quite frankly, I value my time too much to read someone random internet person's blog without being sold on
why I should be reading it. I'm not denying that there could be very valuable information there, but I'm probably going to get the same information by reading works by more accomplished authors.
>>2306178I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but China has been pretty explicit that it does not work this way. Even the Chinese nationalists I've seen generally say things like "your country, your problem".
>>2306189I don't see why. Nobody here likes the way things are right now, Biden and Trump's based retardation made it ever worse, and people left and right are getting wise to electoral politics. Something big is brewing, and we're just seeing the start of it.
>>2306322>How do we feel about underground cell networks? excellent, part of the work. but also cumbersome, burdensome. not for the work or how they are related to the surface parties, but for the potential infiltration that could get people arrested.
If they were to contribute to a potential revolution, the parties need to conciliate with the leaders of these networks.
I think these networks should be integral part of serious parties, but only managed by the most loyal members, those who understand what socialism and communism is, that sectarianism isn't a key virtue, and they only will respond when the material conditions have amassed a critical mass.
code names, encryption, and decentralization should be key points for these groups.
>Doesn't necessarily need to be for violent adventurist purposes.if they are underground is because they are aiming that, violent and adventurism, but not anarchist non-sense. only wait to particular situations where they can hurt the state effectively, like when these protests in LA happen, the infiltrated underground organizations reveal the names of undercover pinkertons that try to arrest people from the marches. the less they are a threat to the state, the more open they are.
leave the meaningless breaking of a door of a petite bourgeoisie to the anarchists, rather disarticulate the gangs of snitchers where is needed.
that's just an example.
>>2305492
>The paralysis and resulting lack of revolutionary potential is a direct consequences of the material conditions of the imperial core.
Pretty much. A country can only make revolution when it’s the only way out for the country's predicament.
>They know that communism would drastically reduce if not eliminate these things altogether and are well aware their standard of living is built off the enslaved of African children, yet they have done nothing about it. Decade after decade of neocolonial atrocities and not one American has risen up in meaningful revolt because they are fundamentally too addicted to their treats to ever have an interest in it
If communism will drastically reduce the standard of living in Western countries, then it has zero chance of success, because the people of these countries will not willingly give up the more developed material conditions that make their living conditions possible. It'd be no more possible than to expect people in poor countries to have gone on living under colonial governors.
It's a dogmatic oversimplification to think this is because of enslaving African children too. An important factor in the West is the high level of technological development, efficiency, and coordination of economic production. It's done under a capitalist ownership model rather than a socialist state ownership model, but the fundamental logic is not much different. There are different political systems in the world but the general tendency is towards the elimination of artificial barriers to production (which also adjust to local, natural, national, and other conditions).
There has also been a general tendency towards the world unification of production. The USSR for its own reasons (likely they had little choice) locked itself behind autarkic barriers and collapsed, while China opened up markets to Western investment. This opening up and trade was not done out of good will on either side but economic necessity, and that made some progress (i.e. gradual progress) towards the elimination of economic inequalities between peoples. It's possible for an isolated socialist country that practices autarky to go on for some time and provide a modest living for its people, but it will lag behind and probably have to maintain a rather despotic political regime like North Korea in order to survive.
I think the thing that annoys me the most about third-worldists is that it feels like there's no winning with them. There's this nationalist essentialism underlying the whole thing, where I've committed the unforgivable sin of being born in the wrong nation, and the only means of penance is to let them violent kill me.
It smells a lot of a kid who got bullied turning around and becoming a bully himself; a bunch of unnecessary violence and hatred done to no practical end.
>>2306520>If communism will drastically reduce the standard of living in Western countriesMy question is, will it though? Ask a homeless man living under a bridge what his standard of living is. Or the guy who's been permanently crippled by a preventable injury. Or someone who's working three jobs to make ends meet. And remember, you don't need a majority to start a revolution; just enough people to do what needs to be done. And I, personally, know that these people exist in the US.
>>2306710>My question is, will it though?Hell if I know. What I'm getting at it though, is that I think it's the wrong angle to think about it. Like the whole Marxist theory is about superstructures which come to stand in the way of the further development of the forces of production being regularly reformed or junked for new ones to enable that further development. You saw that clearly in colonized and semi-colonized countries at a certain point, and revolutions could take an anti-capitalist form because the capitalists in those countries were not actually doing their "job" of developing the economy. But the idea of a revolution in the U.S. that drives the country backwards to a lower level of economic and material development is not realistic.
>And remember, you don't need a majority to start a revolutionBut you need a majority to win. No revolution can be won by a minority or simply made by a party. And in Russia for example, there were many revolutionary parties, not just the Bolsheviks.
>>2305382>Anarchists, who lack the political organizing capabilities to accomplish anything of note, usually somehow lap these orgs in actual militant activityReally funny hearing anarchists in Los Angeles say that PSL are pussies who just shout a lot while being herded by police, PSL stands for Pussy Suckers Losers
>>2305574>women enslaved by patriarchal capitalism aren't REAL WORKERS>real workers are when you are a soulless bugman gamerchair socialist who spends his time stroking his beard to attempt to seem human>>2305506>regurgitating glorified welfare queen propagandaThe NYC construction worker in The Antifada podcast said "someone I work with said 'I lost a million dollars in my investments because of Trump's tariff chaos'
What's the word for a working class boomer can lose "a million dollars" overnight because of their financial portfolio? We might call that person a fascist. And in fact every teacher with a pension or other worker also has materially invested in the military industrial complex that is turning Palestinian children into dust
>>2305560>extreme wrecker behavior of bourgeois nationalistsFinance imperialists literally overthrew the president of Russia's neighbor country because they refused to sign a trade deal that let corpos buy the land out from under the feet. You hate nationalism because you're an ultraleft liberal who is aligned with Soros:
https://tlio.org.uk/war-and-theft-the-hostile-takeover-of-ukraines-agricultural-land-private-equitys-21st-century-war-for-global-enclosure-and-slavery/https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/blog/who-owns-agricultural-land-ukraine >>2306710>My question is, will it though?think it this way: with all the wealth they have amassed, the capitalists, the average American would see their life largely improved.
how you know? see the economic data of capital accumulation.
and that applies to everyone else outside the imperial core.
>>2305382They're pussies in so far that they are afraid of militarism and have tried to peace police the LA riots. But OP is right, such behaviour isn't limited to that of the PSL. Prime example is the DSA who refused a coalition with the SRA, which arguably could have served as their armed wing.
https://x.com/neonarodist/status/1888237458111762716Meanwhile, orgs like the community self defence coalition have been the ones to at least help organise the masses.
https://x.com/Blacks4Peace/status/1932586549331333267 https://x.com/EnglishSalar/status/1895474014002536640All the PSL and CPUSA has done is call for "peaceful protest" as if that isn't going to have Trump's fascist government clamp down on them like they already are.
>>2314658Meds. Now.
>>2305382>Genuinely, would we have better results in these kinds of conditions if our orgs were fully underground to begin with?No. There are tons of organisations like that in the same places and they have equally little impact.
The solution to the problems of these orgs aren't the type of orgs that they were born out of which had even less impact
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