Chris Bovet
General Secretary, PCUSA

Timothy Dirte
Editor in Chief

Communists are not anti-American (e.g., Lenin was anti-Tsar not anti-Russian; Communists are anti-Capitalist not anti-American).

Today there is an infection in the left which dates back to the time of Lenin which he called “Left-communism” or what we call “Ultra-leftism” today. Lenin referred to these ultra-leftists in his book “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”. The gist of Lenin’s analysis is that there are some who call themselves “communists” but who failed to apply the correct application of Marxism to their situation, instead falling for non-Bolshevik methods of work. 

Left-wing communism takes the form of ultra-leftism which is best exemplified by the various trends of petty-bourgeois radicalist-philosophies of anarchism, Maoism, Trotskyism and so-called self-proclaimed “radicals” who are infected with the Frankfurt School’s New-Left radicalism. All of these groups suffer from the same “infantile disorder”. These ideologies have a sense of national nihilism, i.e., their adherents have separated themselves from American history; they reject the national history of their own people and how it is traditionally viewed by their people.

America, as with every other bourgeois country, exist with different classes. A small, ruling class that controls the superstructure of that country, and the masses of people who produce the wealth of that country.

It is incorrect for Marxist-Leninists to consider the whole society illegitimate and therefore seek its destruction, if its ruling class is the cause of this illegitimacy. In the case of apartheid South Africa, the position of the South African Communist Party was to eliminate its apartheid leadership and set the country on a new road of racial equality and social justice. This understanding was pointed out by Lenin when he stressed that the propertied ruling class of a country does not necessarily represent that country, they are just the parasitic current rulers of that society.  Once again, “We don’t throw out the baby when we throw out the dirty bathwater”. Lenin stated:

“Is a sense of national pride alien to us, Great-Russian class-conscious proletarians? Certainly not! We love our language and our country, and we are doing our very utmost to raise her toiling masses (i.e., nine-tenths of her population) to the level of a democratic and socialist consciousness. To us it is most painful to see and feel the outrages, the oppression and the humiliation our fair country suffers at the hands of the tsar’s butchers, the nobles and the capitalists. We take pride in the resistance to these outrages put up from our midst, from the … Great-Russian working class having created, in 1905, a mighty revolutionary party of the masses; and in the Great-Russian peasantry having begun to turn towards democracy and set about overthrowing the clergy and the landed proprietors.”

This means that communists are not National Nihilists. Communists have a great love for their country because of their desire to uplift its workers to a higher level of class consciousness in order to get rid of the capitalists who drag their countries through the mud, plundering the world in their insatiable search for profits. This is why we want to retake our country from the corporations and return it to its’ working class which built it up.

There are some petty-bourgeois radicals who consider our country to be wholly reactionary and deserving only of destruction, in other words, to throw the baby out with the bath water. Such  views were never shared by either Marx or Lenin and is in fact one which was borne outside the ideology of the working class. Workers must work together to improve the consciousness of their brothers and sisters to organize the class struggle. Workers, comprising the majority of society, do not have a nihilistic view of their own country. They want to make life better for themselves and their family.

I. The Ultra-Left on Patriotism

The ultra-left takes a generally negative view of American patriotism anytime it is mentioned. The idea of patriotism and being a patriot is seen from the ultra-left in the same way as the nationalist-chauvinism of the bourgeois and American exceptionalism. Historical documents like the Constitution are viewed by the ultra-left from a present-day understanding when the means of production have advanced and levels of consciousness are higher. They do not view the documents in a historical materialist manner, which prevents them from seeing the progressive nature of the Constitution.

This view is paradoxically an exceptionalist view. This is because it is different in form from the American exceptionalist view of Jay Lovestone in the 1920s, but is in essence the same. The present-day theory of settlerism states America and its workers are inherently reactionary, denies the class struggle of white workers, and confuses what class struggle does exist objectively dividing the working class. In short, the ultra-left assumes anyone who calls themselves a “patriot” is automatically a “traitor to the revolution” and should be chastised. This view paints a picture of a country whose political economy has been turned on its head and forms a “peculiarity of American capitalism”. Which is the same argument made by Jay Lovestone, a so-called “Communist” who later defected to the CIA, in which Stalin refuted in his speech to the American Commission of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1929.

II. Left in Form and Right in Essence

Is it a departure from an internationalist position to be patriotic of one’s country? It is an immensely patriotic stance, standing in contradistinction to the barbaric policies of finance capital, to take the side of the working class, the overwhelming majority of this nation. How could it be otherwise? And how could we ever hope to instill among our people the vision and drive for revolution if it is based on a regressive and backwards view of the national question in the US? The ultra-left speak of the balkanization of the US, a contradiction to the basic tenets of a revolutionary position on the national question to the workers and call it a “enlightened vision” of the future. Comrade Liu Shaoqi in Internationalism and Nationalism wrote:

“Genuine patriotism means fervent love of one’s own fatherland, and its people, language, culture, literature and best traditions, behind which lie thousands of years and generations of historical development. This kind of patriotism has no connection whatsoever with self-centered, selfish and anti-foreign bourgeois nationalism, nor with such national prejudices as narrow-minded exclusivism, isolationism, sectarianism and provincialism, which reflect the sentiments of the small peasant and the backward patriarchal system.”

Such ultra-left perspectives on the national question in the US will isolate and disparage the workers and their history in their totality. It is a reactionary position and a gift to those pursuing fascism who seek to uphold the most reactionary characteristics of our national legacy which would preserve bourgeois class domination. The ultra-left perspectives fail to separate the progressive sections of our history from the reactionary ones and allows fascist support to be built among working people. Lenin noted such “infantile leftists” are relegated to the fringes of the Communist movement, isolated from the majority of the workers who inherently have an interest in the future of their country.

The American people’s understandable anger at the transgressions and oppression organized by the bourgeoisie in the history of our nation might serve as the impetus for the objectively progressive and patriotic initiative to free the American people from the bourgeoisie dragging the country through the mud.

We of course must recognize the destruction of the indigenous cultures which is a blot on the country’s history. It is a requirement for the full liberation of the workers from capitalist oppression to see to the emancipation of the nationalities that the United States oppresses. In the words of Karl Marx:

 “…in the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralyzed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin when in the black it is branded.”

Karl Marx, Capital Vol I Chapter 10 Section 7

However, settlerism is an anti-Marxist position which is characterized by a confusion on the class characteristics of racism, white-supremacy, and the national question applied to the US. It is inconsistent with a Marxist-Leninist perspective. The objective realities of the political situation in the US requires the unity of Black, White, and Native American workers to abolish monopoly-capital and its Confederate-minded bosses in the south, which William Z. Foster called “the bulwark of racism and anti-democratic activity”.

Our present society is fundamentally meant to defend the development of capitalism. But our bourgeois-republic is at the same time poised to exhibit an extreme backwardness cultivated by the capitalists taking inspiration from the Confederacy in order to make possible the victory of fascism. This backwardness develops out of the regressive and backwards elements of the bourgeoisie in the US such as the most reactionary elements of finance capital.

All the means of production, distribution, and communication, are sufficiently centralized for the immediate transition into socialist production. Yet, because of the complete backwardness of the bourgeoisie, we experience crises of compounding severity while fully cognizant of the methods and means to organize production scientifically. Under capitalism, science is degraded to a subservient position to be used in the interests of the capitalists. The increasing frequency and severity of the crises, because of the lack of scientifically-organized production, compels the political development of the masses. Every American from the most advanced proletariat to the most socially-disconnected person who in good times lived comfortable, routine lives and paid no heed to concerns around them, are reacting to the crisis. As the proletariat awakens to the barbarity of their oppression, fascism, which is in development in the US, serves as the counter to preserve the class domination of the bourgeoisie.

Our bourgeois-democratic republic was progressive in contrast to slave society, but it has reached a decadent, decaying, and rentier state which necessitates its abolition for the further progression of our society. We must therefore take up the patriotic aim of lifting up our people to a progressive and socialist consciousness to combat the disfiguring influence of the bourgeoisie on our national development and to realize real freedom which to many for so long has been but a lofty idea.

That is why it is a cover and disguise to uphold “freedom” without detailing for whom and what class. We speak here, always, and forever, for the freedom of the workers. We stand in defiance to the freedom of the capitalists to inflict our people with illness and death. We ruthlessly expose the decadence of the present bourgeoise-republic and reject the idea that this is the highest form of democracy. At the present time, those who speak of freedom and democracy in general, while our people are tattered and worn by exploitation at the hands of the capitalists, prove themselves to be but the watchmen for our people’s suffering. Our present democracy is simply the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

The supposed “patriots” espousing bourgeois reaction and the ultra-left petty-bourgeois radicals in despair who fail to uphold the progressive characteristics of working-class history in the US will prove themselves traitors to the workers of this country, to the international community of nations, and to the cause of socialism. This includes participation in activities which the ultra-left considers to be beneath them such as meeting the workers where they are. We must first build an anti-monopoly coalition to raise the class consciousness of the American worker to what is necessary for the victory of socialism. As Lenin says, “the masses learn from life and not from books.”

The vast majority of Americans are workers and oppressed nationalities, who at present have little access to democracy. Real patriotism seeks to establish for the American people a democracy based on Marxism-Leninism.

 movement against their power. All progressive Americans must continuously fight against these tactics, because they will never cease so long as the capitalist system is in place. Americans must understand that the drive of fascism is not one of abstract totalitarianism, but rather it should be seen as a concrete expression of the will of corporate America and the military-industrial complex, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to suppress democratic institutions.