History of Opportunism in the Second International “Defense of the Fatherland”

Owing to the history of the development of the labor movement and revolution before both WWI and WWII there is a defining characteristic of parties in revolutionary periods. Contradictions between opportunist trends and Bolshevism are intensified, lines are clarified, and opportunist forces which had grown during peace time now try to smother revolution. The entire movement becomes engulfed in bitter conflict over the path forward for the class. Today we see nothing different. Thus, there is a direct connection between the at-present fractured Communist movement and the victory gained by opportunism in the west. As a consequence this requires revolutionaries to educate the working class on the importance of the conflict, its causes, and finish the split started by opportunists who will try by hook or crook to ally with the bourgeoisie.

But why, one might ask, do these opportunists who speak in Communist ways try to fight against revolution? Do they not speak of revolution themselves? Do they not follow Lenin and organize themselves into Communist parties? So how can there be “opportunist” Communist parties? How can opportunism have captured so many? And how are we sure who the real opportunists are today?

Remember that the parties of the Second International right up to the start of WWI had considered the looming war to be one of imperialist plunder. They understood that there was no progressive or just characteristic to the war at all, and the war was purely to divide markets. In 1912 the Ninth Congress of the Second International passed the Basle Manifesto which in words took a revolutionary stand against the coming imperialist war. Many socialists in Europe at the time could not see through the phrase mongering of the Second International leadership. After its passage Lenin remarked, “They have given us a large promissory note; let us see how they will meet it.”

The Basle Manifesto only passed because of the general anti-war atmosphere among the workers who had put pressure on their opportunist leaderships to adopt an anti-war position. The founder and most influential party of the Second International, the German Social-Democratic party, had shortly after passing the Basle Manifesto held a party congress in 1913 where it upheld Germany’s colonies. This clearly indicates that while the parties of the Second International were forced to adopt an anti-war position on the outside, they had every intention to support the war. The words of the Second International in the Basle Manifesto would not translate into deeds.

On July 28, 1914, Austria attacked Serbia. On August 3^rd the German Social-Democratic party voted 78 to 14 in the Reichstag in support of joining the war saying that Russia was soon to invade Germany and then declaring “in the hour of danger we shall not desert the fatherland.” The other European parties adopted the same justification and carried out the same line in their respective countries. The opportunists in the Second International had carried out the greatest betrayal to the working class in history at that time. They disguised their betrayal in a thin veil of “Marxism” saying that the German nation-state was threatened, that they must defend their workers against the invaders, and that Germany was the country with the most advanced Social-Democracy in Europe and necessitated defense. Of course, the parties in the Entente countries had their own social-chauvinism and raised the defense of their own countries to be paramount. Thus, these parties all fell into collaboration with the imperialists to wage an unjust war.

The German Social-Democratic party as the most influential party in the Second International played a large role in influencing other parties to follow suit in this greatest betrayal. It signified the ideological and political collapse of the Second International. The war had nothing in common with the interests of the working class. It was an unjust and reactionary war to loot and plunder.

The opportunists in the Second International cited the writings of Marx and Engels who had supported the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 where Germany was liberated from the oppression of Napoleon III who had kept Germany in a state of feudal decentralization. This act made the war a progressive one on Prussia’s part by allowing the growth of the bourgeoisie, and therefore the proletariat, in Germany. Yet nothing about the conditions of WWI would lend itself to being compared to a struggle for national liberation. The leaders of the German Social-Democratic party grasped at straws trying to justify the involvement of the German proletariat in a war of plunder.

Karl Kautsky, who was the most prominent Marxist of the time and member of the German Social-Democratic party, said: “The Situation is different with the great solidly-based national countries. Their independence is certainly not threatened but apparently their integrity is not threatened either.” This may appear to be an argument against supporting the war, but he then follows this with, “But from this follows also the further duty of the Social-Democracy of every country to regard the war exclusively as a defensive war, to set up as its goal only protection from the enemy, not his ‘punishment’ or diminishment”. Thus in order to consider the war “just” Kautsky considered it “defensive” and the duty of German socialists to “defend the fatherland”.

The Basis of Opportunism

In Lenin’s work “The Collapse of the Second International” he says in chapter I,

“If we would formulate the question in a scientific fashion, i.e., from the standpoint of class relations in modern society, we will have to state that most of the Social Democratic parties, and at their head the German Party first and foremost—the biggest and most influential party in the Second International—have taken sides with their General Staffs, their governments, and their bourgeoisie, against the proletariat. This is an event of historic importance, one that calls for a most comprehensive analysis.”[1]

This comprehensive analysis Lenin mentions is that the betrayal of the socialist parties in the Second International stems from the economic basis, and significance, of the ideologically and materially influenced labor movement within Europe by the bourgeoisie. This is possible through super-profit derived bribes given to parts of the working class who are outside of industrial production and primarily engaged in what the English economist J. A. Hobson—in 1902 reflecting on the emergence of imperialism—saw as the inevitable predominance of “personal or minor industrial services” and the “final stages of production” within imperialist countries.

But the roots of opportunism in the labor movement were first expressed in the colonial and industrial monopoly maintained by Great Britain from 1848 to 1892. The analysis of this period comes best from Frederick Engels who remarked that the skilled tradesmen of his time had become “an aristocracy among the working-class.” Conditions in Great Britain as a result of its industrial monopoly had produced a stratum of the working class who had become “comfortable” and in good relations with the capitalist class. So much so that Engels considered this section of the working class to have become “bourgeois” in its outlook. In other words, this bought off section of the working class had become perverted and itself perverted the labor movement and turned it social-chauvinist.

This perversion of the labor movement is substantiated economically by the conditions of imperialism. Here we do not speak of chance mistakes in tactics. Opportunism is adapting the labor movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. There is an economic basis to this corruption of the labor movement which introduces bourgeois ideology. And there are two main forms in which this corruption presents itself. Firstly it manifests as those who enjoy a privileged position among the working class and seek to maintain that position, i.e., the AFL-CIO “Higher Strategy of Labor”. Secondly, those in the privileged stratum who as a result of pressure from monopoly have been cast down into the ranks of the lower stratum of the working class but bring with them the interests of the bourgeoisie in left-disguise regardless of intentions.

This privileged stratum of the working class both ideologically and materially influenced by the bourgeoisie did not remain a solely English phenomenon. The loss of Great Britain’s industrial monopoly and the emergence of imperialism among several European countries meant that this privileged stratum of the working class had become a condition of all countries with monopoly capital. The establishment of this privileged strata of workers in all the advanced capitalist countries is why in nearly all socialist parties within the Second International following the most influential and whose leadership was populated primarily by these “comfortable workers” went to the defense of their respective “Fatherlands” when the division of the world market could no longer proceed under peaceful politics and threatened the “comfortable” conditions of the social-chauvinists.

Certainly, today it is a fact of life that manufacturing in the advanced capitalist countries is no longer what it once was. Services are the predominant industries in all imperialist countries. Hobson was quite correct in that regard. A large portion of workers in the imperialist countries only facilitate the realization of commodities. This means that merchant capital has become predominant in the circulation of commodities. The bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries have become parasites on the oppressed countries of the world, which they have forced to surrender a greater share of the surplus-value of commodities produced to create super-profits for the imperialists.

In the rest of the labor movement, the domination of opportunism over the most advanced sections of the working class is a result of the industrial restructuring of the advanced capitalist countries. The party’s loss of a firm footing in the industrial centers is why the Central Committee of the PCUSA stated in its Industrial Concentration Strategy and Plan that, “the restructuring of the basic industries in the United States [as well as Europe] meant the decline and deterioration of the old industrial sector of the working class.” The decline of what we might call “blue collar” factory work today has had a corresponding decline in the proportion of party members who came from the lower strata of the working class and the domination of the privileged upper strata – what we call petty-bourgeois radicals today.

This is not unique to the conditions of the US, but one that affects all Communist parties in the advanced capitalist countries. The incessant, seemingly overwhelming problem of opportunism, left or right, is simply part and parcel of the conditions of building a Communist party in the belly of the beast. Meaning this restructuring, i.e., decimation of the organized industrial sectors of the economy, reflected itself in the party. 

It is an important question to ask why the Communist Party of Germany failed to utilize the revolutionary situation. The Comintern considered the failure due to the lack of connection with workers in the factories, but why was this the case? Lenin’s answer to this question in “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder calls attention to a few factors in the German CP. For one, the German party adopted very childish notions of purity, going as far as to refuse to do any party work in “reactionary unions.” Thus the party had willingly cut itself off from sections of the workers leaving these workers under the influence of traitors and the bourgeoisie.

Secondly, Lenin says,

“In Germany, as in other European countries, people had become too accustomed to legality, to the free and proper election of ‘leaders’ at regular party congresses, to the convenient method of testing the class composition of parties through parliamentary elections, mass meetings, the press, the sentiments of the trade unions and other associations, etc. When, instead of this customary procedure, it became necessary, because of the stormy development of the revolution and the development of the civil war, to pass quickly from legality to illegality, to combine the two, and to adopt the ‘inconvenient’ and ‘undemocratic’ methods of singling out, or forming, or preserving “groups of leaders”—people lost their heads and began to think up some supernatural nonsense. Probably, the Dutch Tribunists who had the misfortune to be born in a small country where traditions and conditions of legality were particularly privileged and particularly stable, and who had never witnessed the changeover from legality to illegality, became confused, lost their heads, and helped to create these absurd inventions.”[2]

Since the German Communist Party had in part separated itself from the labor movement and did not have the experience to navigate the revolutionary situation, it failed to become a leader of the workers. How could it be that a Communist party is separated from the workers? Because the German Communist Party, like most Communist Parties of the west, were organized outside of the labor movement. Being outside of the daily struggle of workers was not the case for the Bolsheviks where out of the labor movement grew the Russian Social Democratic Party and then finally the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks).

Some Reflections On The Issue Of Industrial Structuring

The history of how Communist Parties were developed in the advanced capitalist countries offers potential insight into why the CPUSA had such an issue dealing with the decline of organized industrial sectors. In 1931 the 11^th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International noted several factors which retarded the growth of Communist parties in the imperialist countries. I will quote the pertinent observations,

“The illegal condition of the Bolshevik Party prompted it to establish Party groups in the factories, where it was easier and more convenient to work. The Party structure of the Bolsheviks thus began with the factories, and this yielded excellent results both during the years of the reaction, after the February revolution, and particularly during the October Revolution of 1917, the civil war and the great construction of Socialism. During the reaction following upon 1908, when in places the local party committees and the party leadership (the C.C.) were broken up, there still remained in the factories and mills a certain base, small party cells which continued the work. After the February Revolution, when the elections to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were held, the factories and mills also served as the basis for the elections. It is noteworthy that the elections to the municipal and district councils and the Constituent Assembly, which were based not upon occupational but upon territorial principles, were also carried out by the Bolshevik Party very successfully after the February and October Revolutions, despite the fact that the party had no territorial organizations [emphasis mine – ed.], and its agitation was concentrated in the factories and barracks. The cells and the district and city committees conducted the election campaign without creating special territorial organizations for the purpose. During all periods the lower party organizations of the Bolsheviks existed at the place of work rather than at the place of residence.

Abroad the situation was entirely different. There elections were not held in the factories but in the election districts, in the places where the voters lived. The main task pursued by the Socialist Parties was to gain electoral victories, to fight by means of the ballot, and the Party organization was therefore built along residential lines, which made it easier to organize the Party members for the election campaign in the respective election districts.

[T]he organizations of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries were built without permanent organizational connections with the factories. […]

That the absence of Party organizations in the factories strongly affects the work of the Communist Parties is shown by such an example, for instance, as that of Germany, in 1923, when the Party failed to utilize the revolutionary situation for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, this being due not only to the absence of a truly revolutionary leadership, but also to the absence of extensive and firm connections with the workers in the factories.”[3]

Most Communist Parties in the west were born from Socialist Parties who had no connection to the labor movement. Their primary source of membership came from cells that followed the same geographical-political party structure as bourgeois parties, i.e., city, county, state lines. As a result, the proportional share of cells within the party that are based in the factories are numerically outnumbered by geo-political cells which unify workers who are disconnected from large-scale production within the party. In other words, geo-political organization can be a boon to the white-collar city-petty bourgeoisie and corrupted workers within the party. 

As the 11^th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International noted above, in the illegal period of the Bolshevik Party they were a closed party and only admitted small numbers of candidates. Primarily due to oppression by the Tsar, trustworthiness was one of the main factors used to evaluate candidates. The core cadre of the party became steeled in experience and capable of teaching. When the party became legal after the 1905 Revolution it became a mass party and accepted many new members. Lenin remarked in Party Organization and Party Literature in 1905 that “We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements.”

As well, Lenin in 1916 in his article “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” very clearly outlines the importance of where the party focuses and draws its strength,

“Neither we nor anyone else can calculate precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the ‘defenders of the fatherland’ in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.”[4]

If we have a broader reflection on the experience of the Bolsheviks we find that at very few points in their history did they ever accept a mass of new membership into their ranks and that they had from the beginning been based chiefly on the factories. The issue of petty-bourgeois radicalism had scarcely been a problem within their ranks until periods of the intensification of the revolutionary situation in Russia. Later in 1920 in Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder, Lenin remarks that the Bolsheviks at this point were now very apprehensive in allowing the party to grow too quickly during the October Revolution because of the fact that “careerists and charlatans, who deserve only to be shot, inevitably strive to attach themselves to the ruling party.”[5] This development signified a greater danger of the penetration of corrupting elements at that point in time.

The dangerous combination of petty bourgeois radicalism with a mass party structure is why the consequence of the policies adopted and implemented by the 7^th Congress of the Comintern in the pursuit of the Popular Front, which sought to bring together the broad masses and all progressive people against fascism, resulted in western parties which were ill-equipped to defend themselves from the sudden and large influence of petty-bourgeois radicalism. Western parties had not chiefly based themselves upon the factories, i.e., upon the lowest paid and unbribed sections of the working class. History has proven that all the western parties were unable to digest the “inconsistent elements” as they transitioned into mass parties. It is historical fact that only in the eastern European countries did the Popular Front result in the formation of Socialist Republics since this is where the parties were chiefly situated in the factories rather than along geo-political lines . Thus these parties could withstand allowing a certain portion of the higher stratum of the working class and petty bourgeois to enter the party.

In the 2021 issue of The Communist the General Secretary Angelo D’Angelo and I wrote that,

“What many call Browderism was in reality then a global right-opportunist phenomena which stemmed from imperialism and its effect on the policies of the international Communist movement during the war. Browderism is only how it manifested under the conditions of the US. This also explains why all the advanced capitalist countries fell victim to their own national variants of Browderism. Nevertheless, in essence, it can be said to have arisen in part out of an upward swing in conditions, a lull in the growth of the movement and from political immaturity. As well as the social composition of the parties in the advanced capitalist countries. Plainly, from opportunism.”[6]

It is evident from the experiences of the Bolsheviks and our own parties in the advanced capitalist countries that the predominance of cells organized along geo-political lines is a carryover from the Socialist Party, and that it can be self-defeating by allowing petty-bourgeois radicals to suffocate Bolshevism within the party. It is inevitable then that issues of daily conflict and splits occur over matters immaterial to the long-term goals of the Communist Party. This also means a greater chance for individuals (careerists and charlatans) who do not come from the lower-strata of the working class to rise to leadership positions within the party since the work of the party (i.e. its cells) is detached from struggle within large enterprises.

Marx was a thousand times correct to say that socialism is birth marked with characteristics of capitalism. It is also true to say that western Communist parties are birth marked with the characteristics of their former socialist parties. However, addressing the predominance of the geo-political method of organizing is only a small part of the struggle against opportunism within our party. It is through the geo-political organization of cells that renegades and opportunists are able to more easily gain leadership positions only to corrupt entire sections of the party. Primarily due to the fact that there are fewer workers connected to shops with thousands of other workers and because the work of the geo-political cells are not focused on the immediate needs of any one workplace. The work of these cells mainly revolves around periodical agitation in public places; in other words, no leading role in the labor movement or direct connection to it.

Yet, the struggle against opportunism does not end with fixing the method of cell organization. The struggle against opportunism within the CPSU is evidence that even in parties where shop cells are predominant that opportunism finds other ways to sap at the strength of the party. It is evident though that in today’s world all Communist parties have been affected by industrial restructuring. The industrial basis of western Communist parties has become weakened, and the opportunity for petty-bourgeois radicals to steal leadership of the parties has grown. It is not a coincidence then that like never before Communist parties have reached an impasse over very basic questions of socialist construction or the history and legacy of the Comintern.

Industrial Concentration is the foremost task of any Communist Party, but it is obvious that this policy has not been carried out by the parties of the world who refuse to see the truth of what the war in Ukraine represents. There is no central world leadership to teach its importance. In the vacuum left by the CPSU, many parties have become aimless and have decayed into complacency over the years of industrial restructuring.

The CPUSA in 1949 as a matter of its party education instilled upon all party members that:

“The policy of concentration is not a policy for a special group of comrades, nor a special sphere of work which is carried alongside of other tasks. There must be no counterposing of industrial concentration as ‘one specific activity’ to other mass activities. Winning the workers in the big shops and working class communities is a political task (the struggle for the political policies of the party – which embrace both economic and political issues). Industrial concentration must be the heart and core of the work of all party organizations and all party leaders.”[7]

By regaining a foothold in the big shops the party will secure the social composition of the party as decidedly working class and offer an advantage to the party in its struggle against opportunism within the Communist movement.

The Ultra-Left and Ukraine

Grave issues within the international Communist movement have meant a major difference of perspective about support and non-support for the current Russian military offensive. To understand the current situation it is important to understand the class character of war in the modern age. The historical features of war have changed owing to the development of society and capitalism to its highest stage. By contrast during the period starting from around 1776 with the American Revolution and ending with the Paris Commune in 1871, the major wars and civil wars at this time were bourgeois-progressive and often had a national-liberation characteristic.

All honest socialists participated in the overthrow of feudalism. Most notable among them was Karl Marx who constantly gave guidance and clarity to the character of the US Civil War through the First International, the International Workingmen’s Association. Marx saw clearly that it was a progressive war which could overthrow the feudal Bourbon-Landlords of the South and end chattel slavery. By overthrowing the slave masters in the South the conditions for socialism, which was impossible beforehand, now existed.

Such a war to overthrow the backwards aristocracy was instrumental in allowing capitalism to develop, which was a progressive step, but capitalism most of all concentrates capital and industry. Today, US capitalism has reached its highest stage—imperialism. All the major industries are concentrated into the hands of billionaire associations, and all the major capitalist nations have divided the world amongst themselves. When “peaceful” diplomacy fails to satisfy its re-division, war and violence is waged. Making war in the age of imperialism is the result of fierce competition over markets. This means peace between capitalist countries can only be transitory, and peaceful diplomacy among them only stalls the impending outbreak of war which represents the continuation of capitalist diplomacy in a violent form. As well, the war will bring many changes to Russia which will develop further as a capitalist nation should it defeat NATO and Ukraine.

As analyzed in the PCUSA 2021 Ideological Conference, the US is in a fierce competition with Russia and China for markets to export the highly industrialized commodities produced in the US. When Trump tried to sabotage the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, it was explicitly done in order to offer Europe “Freedom” gas and oil, but at a higher cost than the EU was able to secure from Russia.

Immediately upon Russia committing to conflict in Ukraine, Germany indefinitely suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and the EU and US ceased importing Russian oil and natural gas. As much as 40% of EU energy was imported from Russia. The US had tried to capture this market by attempts to sabotage the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Germany and Russia under Trump “peacefully”. Such a market is extremely important, which is why the US since 2014 had cultivated fascism and knowingly egged on NATO membership in Ukraine in order to get control over the energy markets of the EU and force Russia into a military response and subsequently isolate them from energy markets.

However, this maneuvering by the US has heavy costs. The PCUSA 2021 Ideological Conference analyzed the situation in Europe and noted that a divide between the EU and US was growing. This still remains largely true, even with Germany forgoing trade with Russia to its detriment. As the crisis of capitalism deepens it strains the ability of the US to maintain its alliances in NATO, meaning there is a weakening unity among members given the heavy handedness of the US forcing the EU into subpar deals. Shortly before the conference last year, China had signed the “largest trade deal in history” with the EU to the exclusion of the US.

Forcing EU NATO members to accept greater costs, and have less of a share of global profits in order to pad the pockets of US imperialists will result in worsening diplomacy between the US and EU. Even as Germany once more does the bidding of the US, Germany has signed a historic military spending bill, as much as 10x its previous military spending after being forced to suspend Nord Stream 2 bringing their total spending to an astounding €100 billion[8]. Germany and the EU have begun to lose confidence in the ability of the US to protect their profits, with the US under Trump even outright trying to strong-arm the EU into paying more for NATO[9]. In order for the EU to finally shake off US control, it will require a historic build-up of military forces.

However, there is also a more serious implication of a growing schism in global capitalism trending toward the build-up of these military forces around the world for an impending global conflict which can bring humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation. This time is far more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis since Russia is no longer socialist and therefore is not guided by the same Communist morality.

As in 1914, all the American and European capitalists paint this war as one for the “freedom of nations.” In actuality, the capitalists egg on and cultivate this war for the oppression of nations, to fortify existing colonies, and to prolong capitalist rule. Though at the same time, as during WWII, the scourge of fascism walks the earth (cultivated by the US and NATO) giving an impetus to the growth of the grossest reaction the world over, and renders social revolution under such conditions as existing in Ukraine impossible. There can be no socialist revolution while the working class is kept under the thumb of fascism. Thus the defeat of fascism in the Ukraine is both essential and progressive.

This is why the PCUSA affirms its position that, because Russia has made it clear that its ambitions for the war serve to resolve the mounting crisis in Russia itself, that the ousting of the Bandera fascists and defense of the DPR and LPR can be used as a justification for a war of conquest, i.e. reclaiming the “common motherland” of the Tsarist Empire. Until the point when the actions of Russian capital move toward conquest, the PCUSA stands with all anti-fascist people in support of the Donbass and support the war against the Bandera fascists in Kiev. In our own country, we must remember that the American workers have no interest in waging a war for plunder, that it is forced upon them. The American workers are mentally ruined and physically worn out not only as a result of the growing intensification of their exploitation under US capitalism, but from decades of predatory wars, epidemics, and the acute suppression of their organization by a mass of labor misleaders. It is the  duty of all communists in the US during these times to build resistance against our country’s engagement in the cultivation of punitive fascist wars to re-divide the world market.

[1] Lenin, V.I., “The Collapse of the Second International” in Collected Works, Vol. 21; Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1974, pp. 207-208.

[2] Lenin, V.I., “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, pp. 32-33.

[3] Piatnitsky, O., The Bolshevization of the Communist Parties By Eradicating The Social-Democratic Traditions; Workers Library Publishers: New York, 1932,  p. 15-17.

[4] Lenin, V.I., “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” in Collected Works, Vol. 23; Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1974a, p. 120.

[5] Lenin, Op. Cit., 2022, p. 42.

[6] Dirte, Timothy, “Opportunism and the Collapse of the Third International” in The Communist, Vol. 1, 2021, p. 52.

[7] Study Course on The Communist Party, The Working Class, and Industrial Concentration: Outline and Guide for Schools, Classes, Study Groups; The National Education Depart of the Communist Party USA: New York, 1949, p. 18.

[8] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-hike-defense-spending-scholz-says-further-policy-shift-2022-02-27/

[9] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nato-trump/trump-says-nato-countries-burden-sharing-improving-wants-more-idUSKCN1RE23P

The post Imperialism and the Split Among “Communists” appeared first on The Communist.

The term “Cultural Marxism” is frequently used in political discussions, but its meaning is obscure. Those on the Right claim that it signifies the infiltration of Western academia by Jewish Marxists from the Frankfurt School. They argue that their goal is to undermine the United States and Europe by utilizing Critical Theory to advocate for feminism, multiculturalism, LGBTQ+ identities, anti-white racism, and other perceived societal problems. Conversely, the mainstream Left regards this as a baseless far-right conspiracy theory and draws a parallel to the term “Cultural Bolshevism” employed in fascist propaganda. While both sides offer some valid points about Cultural Marxism, neither provides a complete picture.

Critical Theory vs Marxism

“Critical Theory” refers to a social theory practiced by intellectuals from the Frankfurt School, associated with the Institute for Social Research in Weimar Germany.[1] These theorists expressed dissatisfaction with both capitalism and communism, leading them to develop a new ideology aimed at societal development. Max Horkheimer, in his 1937 essay “Traditional and Critical Theory,” first defined Critical Theory as a social theory that goes beyond explaining society as it is and instead seeks to critique and transform it. Horkheimer outlined the fundamental principles of Critical Theory, which include the criticism of societal flaws, identification of agents capable of effecting change, and the provision of goals for social transformation.

According to Critical Theory, ideology serves as the primary driver of oppression,[2] and the objective is to analyze and overcome these ideas that hinder human freedom. In contrast, Marxism utilizes dialectical materialism to understand that these ideas merely reflect reality rather than determine it. In pursuit of the goal to liberate humanity from all forms of oppression, additional critical theories have emerged alongside various social movements, including the civil rights movement, feminism, and the gay and lesbian movement. However, a question arises: Do these critical theories genuinely aim to emancipate the oppressed masses, or do they in fact work to fragment the working class and divert revolutionary momentum?

Every successful socialist revolution has resulted in better material conditions for the entire working class, including women and ethnic minorities. However, a contrasting situation has unfolded in the United States, where critical theories have thrived within academia while capitalism remains the prevailing mode of production. Instead of progress, the majority of Americans have experienced a decline in their living standards, coupled with an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a privileged few. Despite its pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric, Critical Theory has consistently served the interests of those who perpetuate human enslavement, while suppressing the achievements of Communist movements that have genuinely established societies oriented towards meeting the needs of the working class.

First, they came for the Communists …

Initially, when the Nazis rose to power in Germany, the Institute for Social Research chose to refrain from openly criticizing the government. Theodor Adorno believed that the regime would primarily target “the orthodox pro-Soviet Bolshevists and communists who had drawn attention to themselves politically”.[3] This observation was indeed accurate at that time, as the Communists were the first group to be sent to concentration camps. However, it didn’t take long for the Nazis to extend their persecution to the Jewish population. In the late 1930s, several Frankfurt intellectuals, including Horkheimer, Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, relocated to the United States to escape persecution due to their Jewish heritage. Walter Benjamin, on the other hand, did not join them. Benjamin relied solely on the Institute for his income, and one might expect that his colleagues would have taken his financial situation into consideration and made efforts to help him escape Nazi terror. However, evidence suggests that his fellow scholars had ideological motivations behind their decision to relocate to the US without him.[4]

Benjamin maintained a close friendship with Bertolt Brecht, a Marxist playwright who openly criticized the Frankfurt theorists. Adorno harbored resentment towards Brecht due to his ideological influence on Benjamin. In a letter to Horkheimer on January 26, 1936, Adorno referred to Brecht as a “savage” and expressed his belief that Benjamin needed to be freed from his influence.[5] Two years later, Horkheimer informed Benjamin that he should anticipate a loss of funding from the Institute. Furthermore, Horkheimer claimed, shortly after transferring $50,000 to one of his own accounts, that he regretfully couldn’t provide financial assistance for Benjamin’s steamship ticket to escape to the United States and seek safety from encroaching fascist forces. In 1940, Benjamin tragically took his own life at the border between France and Spain, facing almost certain capture by Nazi forces. The leading Frankfurt intellectuals depicted his suicide as a tragic and incomprehensible personal decision, and claimed that they had tried to help him escape.

If Horkheimer were to rewrite Martin Niemoller’s famous poem, it would read something like this:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I hated Communists.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I fled to the United States,
leaving my more Marxist-aligned Jewish colleague to die.

It is possible that the Frankfurt intellectuals harbored animosity towards Brecht because he recognized their compromising stance, as summarized by Stuart Jeffries, as “prostitutes in their quest for foundation support during their American exile, selling their skills and opinions as commodities in order to support the dominant ideology of oppressive U.S. society”.[6] When Horkheimer became director of the Institute in 1930, the Frankfurt School shifted its research focus away from comprehensive analyses of class struggle towards abstract investigations of culture and authority.[7] This approach aimed to appease future donors by refraining from suggesting alternatives to capitalism or an end to imperialism. Upon Adorno’s initial emigration to the US, he worked for the Princeton Radio Project, which received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to investigate the impact of mass media on society.[8] Marcuse, meanwhile, served in the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, during which he authored critical works on the Soviet Union,[9] which were later published in his 1958 book Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis.

Supported by generous funding from the US government and the Rockefeller Foundation, the Frankfurt scholars were able to sustain their work throughout the early Cold War, eventually relocating the Institute back to West Germany in the late 1940s. The funds for this move were administered by John McCloy, who served as the US High Commissioner of Germany. In his earlier career as a Wall Street lawyer, McCloy had worked with various corporations operating in Nazi Germany, including IG Farben, the manufacturer of Zyklon B gas. Following the conclusion of World War II, McCloy granted clemency to several Nazi war criminals,[10] enabling them to retain a significant portion of their former wealth and influence. With the transition from a fascist regime to a US-supported anti-Communist government, West Germany provided a favorable environment for the Frankfurt School to continue its work and engage in new anti-Communist endeavors, as will be explored next in this series on Cultural Pseudo-Marxism.

*    *    *

After the Institute for Social Research relocated to Germany, its significance persisted just as it had in the United States. Fortunately for the Frankfurt intellectuals, they chose not to settle in East Germany. This decision stemmed not only from the government’s intolerance towards their counter-revolutionary activities but also from their desire to avoid encountering Bertolt Brecht, a close friend of the late Walter Benjamin, who had moved to the German Democratic Republic to contribute to socialist endeavors. Brecht continued his pointed critiques of the Frankfurt School in his play “Turandot” (The Whitewashers’ Congress), a satirical take on academics who compromise their intellectual integrity to manipulate reality in favor of the ruling class—referred to as “Tuis” by Brecht.[12]

Many assert that the Frankfurt Tuis were Marxists, driven by either ignorance or anti-Communist sentiment. If this were true, why were they embraced in West Germany while shunned in the GDR?

This misconception may have arisen from the fallacy that liberal democracies are in fact free and inclusive societies where individuals of all ideological stripes can freely express their convictions. In reality, the case of West Germany reveals that these principles of liberal democracy were, at best, selectively-employed. One could for example openly advocate for pedophilia,[13] but any praise for Stalin was met with contempt. The anti-Communist puppet government in the U.S.-occupied western region of Germany outlawed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) distanced itself from Marxism, and U.S. intelligence decided to use the Institute for their next big operation.

The “Compatible Left”: A CIA Creation

In June 1950, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was established in West Berlin.[14] Its members were mainly anti-Soviet leftists[15], but there were conservative participants too, like Irving Kristol[16], later known as the “godfather of neoconservatism”. With CIA backing, the CCF employed varied methods to spread anti-Communist propaganda: hosting conferences globally (primarily in Western Europe), publishing political and artistic journals, and awarding artists and musicians aligned with their goals. The CCF, guided by CIA agent Thomas Braden, cultivated what he called the “compatible”[17] Left—a faction rejecting Marxist analysis and criticizing actually-existing socialist countries.

As evidenced in Theodor Adorno’s correspondence, he worked closely with Melvin Lasky, the founder and chief editor of the CIA-backed publication Der Monat, and an original member of the CCF steering committee. Lasky offered to work with the Institute in any way possible, telling Adorno that he would quickly publish any works or statements from the Institute. Adorno took him up on this offer, going on to publish in Der Monat as well as Encounter and Tempo Presente. Given the backdrop of their prior collaboration, Lasky and the CIA were fully aware that the Frankfurt scholars were eminently suited for this role. Setting aside Herbert Marcuse’s career in US intelligence, the very ideology of the Frankfurt School was effective in neutralizing leftist sentiments while preserving somewhat of a revolutionary veneer.

Starting in 1930, when Max Horkheimer assumed the directorship of the Institute, the Frankfurt School shifted away from class analysis and instead delved into discussions on authority and culture.[18] Neglecting the crucial inquiry into which class holds authority, the CCF employed liberalism to narrow the focus exclusively onto individual freedom. Socialist realism in the Soviet Union was presented as “totalitarian” because it mandated artists to propagate constructive conduct within the working class. Conversely, in the US, an artist possessed the liberty to fling paint onto a canvas and deem it “art.” This contrast disregarded the reality that an artist’s success within capitalism rests entirely on the unpredictability of the market.

From 1944 to 1945, the Institute conducted a study titled “Anti-Semitism in American Labor”, concluding that the most anti-Semitic groups were Communist-led trade unions in the United States.[19] While Nazis received backing from capitalists for their genocidal acts, the Frankfurt scholars deemed certain American workers’ anti-Semitic views as a more urgent concern. The study served as an egregious example how identity politics can be employed to target Communists, a strategy still utilized by the Compatible Left. Furthermore, the Frankfurt School’s criticism of the notion of “authority” effectively discredited Communist parties and organized labor movements. The absence of authority renders revolutionary forces chaotic and vulnerable to counter-revolutionary assaults, aligning with capitalists’ desires to undermine the Left and uphold the bourgeois dictatorship of capital.

Critical Theory perhaps has some merit in scrutinizing ideology as a tool of domination. But the Frankfurt School deliberately obfuscates the role of class in analysis and portrays Critical Theory as immune to ideology. The capitalist class crafted Compatible Leftism as an ideological weapon to safeguard their control over the working class, neutralizing the Communist threat and upholding capitalism. It’s our duty as Communists to uphold the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism and consign the regressive ideology of the Compatible Left to its proper place in the dustbin of history.

*    *    *

Some may be quick to believe that the New Left is entirely to blame on the Frankfurt School, with its identitarianism and “Anything But Class” analysis. There is a point to be made here, but the Frankfurt theoreticians had differing views on the New Left which emerged in the 1960s. Theodor Adorno believed that the progressive student movements at the time could lead to “left fascism,” going as far as to call the cops on students who protested at the Institute for Social Research, including one of his own students.[20] Herbert Marcuse, however, was much more openly sympathetic to the social movements of the ‘60s and had influenced various noteworthy left-wing activists of that time period.

Many supporters of Marcuse willfully overlook his involvement in United States intelligence, focusing instead on his supposedly revolutionary advocacy. An article published in CounterPunch titled “What’s Behind the Recent Attacks on Herbert Marcuse?” described Marcuse as “a staunch advocate of movements for revolutionary change, a Marxist critic of capitalism, and firm supporter of African American liberation and feminism,” going on to praise him for being “[h]ated by both Soviet Communists and the Vatican, [and] adored by revolutionaries around the world”.[21]

Following the logic of Marcuse and his fans leads to some particularly reactionary conclusions. It’s ironic that For Marcuse to work for the precursor to the CIA—the US Office of Strategic Services—and trash the greatest threat to US imperialism at the time – the Soviet Union – is “revolutionary.” But for the USSR to ensure the full participation of women in society, to call on the international community to condemn the horrendous acts of racism against Black Americans, and to participate in the African decolonization struggles are all acts of “totalitarianism.” It is no surprise that capital and its faithful servants continue to push such propaganda.

Marcuse and Petty Bourgeois Radicalism

After the Black Panther Party split into factions, one headed by Huey P. Newton and the other by Eldridge Cleaver, Henry Winston (CPUSA national chair and an African-American) wrote “The Crisis of the Black Panther Party” as a criticism of the ultra-left ideological trends within the Party and their destructive effects.[22] Winston pointed out that the capitalist media had “popularized the caricature of Marxism-Leninism, appearing in the writings of Mao, Trotsky, Marcuse … and others,” and that many New Left radicals had adopted characteristics of this exaggerated image of what a “revolutionary” should be.

Published in 1971, Winston’s description of the ultra-leftists in the Black Panther Party is still quite relevant to the western Left in 2023:

“These Black and white radicals, including Cleaver and Newton, dismissed what they called “orthodox” Marxism. Taking a different direction from [Dr. Martin Luther] King [Jr.] (who promoted working class solidarity, as well as a popular front with the Church and with progressive elements of the middle class), they disdained the working class and glorified the super-”revolutionary” tactics of confrontation by an anarchistic elite. In this way, ultra-”revolutionaries” helped create an atmosphere in which the racist monopolists could falsely portray violence as coming from the Left—and cover up the fact that they themselves are the source of it.”[23] (Our emphasis—Ed.)

CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall wrote “The Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism” in 1970, highlighting many of the same issues which Winston describes.[24]

This article explained how as class conflicts intensify and the masses become more revolutionary, petty-bourgeois radicalism redirects this energy into futile, short-term endeavors, leading to frustration and demoralization. While not explicitly naming Marcuse, Hall implies that many prominent activists who were influenced by Marcuse introduced his “radical” ideas into revolutionary groups.

Angela Davis: We Remember When You Were A Marxist

Angela Davis, renowned for her feminist and anti-racist activism, studied under Marcuse before joining the Communist Party USA. Both right-wing critics and left-wing Marcuse supporters emphasize this fact to assert Marcuse’s radical Marxism. However, both sides often overlook crucial nuances in Davis’s activist career.

In contrast to many petty-bourgeois radicals, Davis did not overtly reject Communism, but her anti-communism had a subtler, more insidious character. During the era of Glasnost and Perestroika in the Soviet Union, Davis, following Marcuse’s lead, championed the pro-Gorbachev faction within the CPUSA. However, her motivations may have leaned more toward personal gain than Marcuse’s specific grievances against Soviet “totalitarianism”. Gorbachev’s policies were simply more financially appealing than those of Stalin which Marcuse vehemently criticized, and the activism of Davis in following decades has mainly centered around her career in academia. From selling her books and speaking at liberal college campuses, Davis has amassed a net worth of approximately $800,000 as of 2023.[25]

The Committees of Correspondence, formed during the 1991 CPUSA Convention, represented this faction but ultimately failed to steer the CPUSA away from Marxism-Leninism, eventually splitting from the party.[26] They emerged in opposition to Gus Hall and Henry Winston’s “conservative” stance of supporting efforts to preserve the Soviet Union against Gorbachev’s counter-revolution. This group attracted various liberal and “democratic socialist” elements within the CPUSA,[27] prioritizing surface-level identity politics over meaningful class analysis. Supporters of the Committees of Correspondence often point out their leadership’s greater diversity,[28] as if meeting arbitrary diversity quotas automatically translated into tangible benefits for their “represented” demographics.

Angela Davis’s alignment with the left wing of capital is evident in her history, ranging from supporting market liberalization during the Soviet Union’s final days to urging leftists to vote for Joe Biden in 2020.[29] She further demonstrates this alignment through her ongoing advocacy for ultra-left ideas, which may be less appealing to the working class but find favor with those who have trust funds and see the hammer and sickle as nothing but a trendy accessory. An example of this is advocating for prison abolition[30] without giving genuine thought to the victims of violent crimes.

Conclusion

Despite the Right’s belief in a radical Marxist takeover of academia, the concept of “Cultural Marxism” fundamentally contradicts Marxism itself. Critical Theory seeks to shift the discourse from class analysis to discussions of authority and culture. Key figures in the Frankfurt School played roles in producing and spreading anticommunist propaganda. And Marcuse’s influence on the Western Left has perpetuated the misconception that communists are elitist and disconnected from the working class. Today, we face a critical juncture in history. Western living standards are declining, multipolarity challenges US hegemony, and capitalists hope to confine communism to academic and niche social media circles. It is imperative for Communists to avoid repeating the New Left and modern CPUSA’s mistake of embracing a carefully crafted “revolutionary” ideal propagated by the ruling class and academia.

[1] Critical Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). ( March 8, 2005).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/

[2] Geuss, Raymond, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1981.

[3] Müller-Doohm, Stefan, Adorno: A Biography; Polity: Cambridge, 2005, p. 181.

[4] Fries, U. (2021). “Ende der Legende Hintergründe zu Walter Benjamins Tod” in Germanic Review, 96(4), 409–441. https://doi.org/10.1080/00168890.2021.1986802

[5] Adorno’s letter to Horkheimer on January 26, 1936, in Adorno and Horkheimer, Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 110.

[6] Jeffries, Stuart, Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School; Verso: London. 2016, p. 136.

[7] Solty, I. (February 15, 2020). “Max Horkheimer, a teacher without a class.” Jacobin.

https://jacobin.com/2020/02/max-horkheimer-frankfurt-school-adorno-working-class-marxism

[8] Cavin, S. Adorno. Lazarsfeld & The Princeton Radio Project, 1938-1941.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/151660755/Adorno-Lazarsfeld-The-Princeton-Radio-Project-1938-1941#

[9] Herbert Marcuse official website. https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/

[10] John J. McCloy. (August 25, 2023). In Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._McCloy#US_High_Commissioner_for_Germany

[11]Saunders, F. (October 22, 1995). “How the CIA used modern art during the cultural Cold War”, Sott.net.

https://www.sott.net/article/413324-How-the-CIA-used-modern-art-during-the-cultural-Cold-War

[12] Script for Turandot by Bertolt Brecht. https://www.scribd.com/document/389599206/Turandot-Bertolt-Brecht-pdf#

[13] Gebhardt, W. (June 17, 2020). “The dark legacy of sexual liberation in Germany”, dw.com.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-allowed-pedophiles-to-foster-children/a-53839291

[14]Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-1950 – CIA.

https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/archives/vol-38-no-5/origins-of-the-congress-for-cultural-freedom-1949-1950/

[15] Saunders, Francis Stoner, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters; The New Press: New York, 2013, Chapter 3.

[16]Ibid., p. 148.

[17] Braden, Thomas W. “I’m Glad the CIA is ‘Immoral’.” The Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1967, pp. 10, 12, 14.

[18] Rose, Gillian, The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno; Columbia University Press: New York, 1979, p. 2.

[19]Collomp, Catherine, “Anti-Semitism among American Labor: a study by the refugee scholars of the Frankfurt School of Sociology at the end of World War II”, Labor History, 52(4), 2011, pp. 417–439.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656x.2011.632513

[20] Romano, Carlin,  “The Agitation of Adorno”, The Chronicle., June 20, 2008.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-agitation-of-adorno/

[21] Katsiaficas, George, “What’s behind the recent attacks on Herbert Marcuse?” CounterPunch.org, December 15, 2021. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/17/whats-behind-the-recent-attacks-on-herbert-marcuse/

[22] Winston, H. (1971, August). “The Crisis of the Black Panther Party” in The Communist, Vol 2, 2022 pp. 17-37.

[23] Ibid., pp. 21-22.

[24] Hall, Gus, “Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism” in The Communist, Vol 2., 2022, pp. 43.-51.

[25] https://pennbookcenter.com/angela-davis-net-worth/

[26] Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line. (February 1, 1992). CPUSA breaks apart (P. Saba, Ed.). Marxists Internet Archive.

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/mlp-cpusa-split.htm

[27] Struggle for Democratic Socialism. (July 23, 1994). [Video]. C-SPAN.org.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?59374-1/struggle-democratic-socialism

[28] Marquit, E., & Marquit, D. G. (1992, February 19). Party survives, but as a shell.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070311011756/http://www.mndaily.com/daily/gopher-archives/1992/02/19/Party_survives%2C_but_as_a_shell.txt

[29] Telusma, B. (July 14, 2020). Angela Davis backs Biden because he ‘can be most effectively pressured’ by the left. TheGrio.

https://thegrio.com/2020/07/14/angela-davis-backs-biden/

[30]            Kelly, K. (2019, December 26). What the Prison-Abolition movement wants. Teen Vogue.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-prison-abolition-movement

The post On The Frankfurt School appeared first on The Communist.

The lack of class-oriented trade unionists stems from the capitalist led McCarthyite purge of Communists and class-oriented unionists within our unions after WWII. The vacuum left by the purges was filled with a terrible swarm of charlatans,  mobsters, and reactionary elements who descended on our unions and did everything they could to make sure that American labor would not regain the strength it once had. With no strong Communist guidance our unions floundered and decayed, culminating in their absolutely pitiful representation of just 10.8% of American workers. A figure which is nearly the same as in the period of American labor history before the creation of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This low figure is not from a lack of interest in union representation (in a recent Gallup poll, 67% of Americans supported unions), but from an inability to achieve it. That means that the momentous achievement of union representation backed by federal legislation and recognized as a constitutionally protected right has been all but neutered.

Federal recognition meant increasingly stronger federal oversight and interference in unions. The bosses were forced to recognize our unions but since they still control the government, they knew that in the long run they would take control of the unions away from class-oriented workers and render them toothless.

Once unions were federally recognized and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) passed,  the State Department began to support right-wing candidates for union leadership, ultimately resulting in the expulsion of class-oriented trade unionists from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO right after WWII. The State Department did this so that it could use the unions as tools of US Foreign Policy, and prevent the unions from being influenced by foreign unions. This change in the leadership of the unions prevented US labor from affiliating with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), of which the CIO was a founding organization. This change in leadership was accomplished through the passage of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, more commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act, which among other anti-union statutes, forced union leadership to sign anti-Communist affidavits effectively banning Communists from union leadership. Unions who refused to honor this stipulation were expelled from the CIO. In the case of the United Electrical Workers (UE), the CIO in conjunction with the State Department, General Electric and Westinghouse corporations led a dual-unionist campaign to replace UE as the union representative in their factories.

Today, with such close connections among  the AFL-CIO, US State Department and the Department of Labor, many “leaders” of labor were quick to announce support for the fascist government of Ukraine. The US State Department is using our unions to give a veneer of union backing to those thugs, who have led a massive anti-union campaign in the Ukraine, including the notorious House of Trade Unions massacre that took place in Odessa in 2014.[1]  We believe that the rank-and-file see through all those maneuvers. US involvement in Ukraine is an imperialist attempt to privatize Ukraine and balkanize Russia.

Many groups in the labor movement today claim to be trying to win back our unions from the entrenched and corrupt leadership that is primarily supported by the US State Department. Tragically they parrot the same language as the State Department. As reactionaries took leadership of the unions, the government cultivated “left” groups who they knew would promote instability and confusion in the labor movement through operation COINTELPRO.[2]

The effect of COINTELPRO is still felt today. Many of these “leftists”  are just reactionaries turned inside out. They are two sides of the same coin. They promote sectarianism, a holier than thou attitude and a general disdain for discipline, organization, and the working-class generally. They end up being useful tools for the bosses. Take for example the “Reform Caucus” in the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), who sued their own union with frivolous accusations. This caused Amazon to file against ALU in order to invalidate the election at Amazon warehouse JFK8, using the Reform Caucus’ lawsuit as evidence. The difference between the right-wing shills working with the State Department and the “left-wing radicals” is that the right-wing shills are getting paid for their treachery. The “left-wing” fools are wrecking the labor movement without pay.

It is up to all honest hard working people to approach the current situation with class-oriented trade unionism. Don’t let the “left-wing” sectarians gossip and weaken our unions, and don’t let the right-wing stifle democracy either. Now is a time of reflection, of learning, and growth for all of us to find the pathway to bringing a class-orientation back to our unions. It all starts with getting back to the basics, to the fundamentals of why we have unions in the first place, and then fighting for the burning issues of labor today.

History has shown that the only way to achieve these goals is to organize and educate a vanguard of the working-class movement. Willam Z. Foster explains this clearly in “The Principles and Program of The Trade Union Educational League”:

“One of the latest and greatest achievements of working-class thinking … is a clear understanding of the fundamental proposition that the fate of all labor organization in every country depends primarily upon the activities of a minute minority of clear-sighted, enthusiastic militants scattered throughout the great organized masses of sluggish workers. These live spirits are the natural head of the working-class, the driving force of the labor movement. They are the only ones who really understand what the labor struggle means and who have practical plans for its prosecution. Touched by the divine fire of proletarian revolt, they are the ones who furnish inspiration and guidance to the growing masses. They do the bulk of the thinking, working and fighting of the labor struggle. They run the dangers of death and the capitalist jails. Not only are they the burden bearers of the labor movement, but also its brains and heart and soul. In every country where these vital militants function effectively among the organized masses the labor movement flourishes and prospers. But wherever, for any reason, the militants fail to so function, just as inevitably the whole labor organization withers and stagnates. The activities of the militants are the “key” to the labor movement, the source of all its real life and progress.”[3]

[1] see “Ukrainian workers living standards have declined under Fascism,” also in this issue.

[2] COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was an illegal secret FBI operation to infiltrate and disrupt American political organizations, e.g., the CPUSA, labor organizations, the civil rights movement, the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the New Left and others.

[3] Foster, William Z, “The Principles and Program of The Trade Union Educational League” in The Labor Herald, Vol 1, Issue 1, March 1922, p. 5.

The post Present Day Leadership Bankrupts the American Trade Union Movement appeared first on The Communist.

Furthermore, the Zelensky regime’s Law 5371, passed in 2022, will drive workers’ living standards down even further: it destroys workers’ rights. The International Labor Organization charged that the new legislation “weakens labor protection, narrows the scope of labor rights and social guarantees of employees, in comparison with the current legislation,” in contravention of Ukraine’s obligations to Brussels under the terms of its EU Association Agreement.[2] Andrey Reva, Ukraine’s former minister of social policy, has leveled similar charges: “Employees will no longer have any protection against arbitrary dismissal. Upon hiring, the employee will be asked to sign an employment agreement, which will allow the employer to obtain unilateral advantages during its conclusion and deprive the employee of any legal opportunities for his defense.”

[1] World Bank data. For more discussion of this statistic, cf. Gallagher, Robert L., Aristotle’s Critique of Political Economy; Routledge: London, 2018, chapters 13 and 14.

[2] https://www.sott.net/article/471638-Hidden-Western-hand-behind-new-British-style-Ukraine-anti-worker-laws-exposed-in-leaked-documents?fbclid=IwAR0nA6OmFlojh7yHAQrikUgjafMpL0BkW7AOWaMvukhTvVrDyOiovJQmfKw

The post Ukrainian Workers Living Standards Have Declined Under Fascism appeared first on The Communist.

If the factory construction boom is real and not just hype, it may explain the surprising development that US inflation has receded in the past year though the Federal Reserve Board (hereafter, “the Fed”) has not raised its interest rates above the rate of inflation, the usual requirement for taming inflation and the one employed by Fed chief Paul Volcker in bringing down the rampant inflation of the 1980s. Inflation that was as high as 9.1% last year has declined to 3.2% though the Fed raised rates only as high as 5.25%. In this period, the factory construction boom, already taking off, was injecting real value into the economy; moreover, the anticipation of increased manufacturing output may also have contributed to calming inflation.

As of August 2023, the Fed’s program of increasing interest rates—now holding at the highest rates in 23 years (5.25%)—has strangled annual price inflation down from last year’s high of 9.1% to 3.2% as of July 2023.[2] Happily, the strangulation of credit has not had much effect on jobs, except to slow job growth, especially in manufacturing[3] (though that may turn around with the factory construction boom). At the same time, wages are going up, though not enough to make up for inflation. In July, actual average hourly earnings by “production and non-supervisory employees” rose at an annual rate of 5.5%,[4] after workers were starved by last year’s 9.1% inflation. Nonetheless, Fed chair Jerome Powell says that with inflation coming down, “real wage growth has been increasing.”[5] With interest rates higher, home sales have plunged. In July 2023 actual home sales were down 18% versus a year ago, and mortgage applications also fell which mean sales will fall further next month.[6]

With inflation down near 3% at no cost to jobs, it would seem the crisis of 2021-2022 is over. Why hasn’t the Fed lowered interest rates?

First of all, inflation is expected to accelerate later this year. ^[7] July’s 3.2% increase in the consumer price index (CPI) was the first acceleration in CPI inflation rates since June 2022. The reason for this is that “core CPI” is now increasing faster than the CPI overall. “Core CPI” increased 4.7% in July, higher than the 3.2% increase in CPI overall, and Powell expects it to accelerate more.[8] Core CPI is a measure of underlying inflation that excludes the prices of food and energy products, which gyrate wildly in both directions, says Wolf Richter. “Core CPI” reveals the actual state of affairs: more inflation to come. In addition, energy prices which had been falling, are now on the rise again. Their decline since June 2022 had masked CPI increases. Now that energy prices are on the rise again, they are driving up the CPI.[9] So, Powell is considering another interest rate hike.

We showed in the last issue of The Communist how prices in the USA are lower than they should be due to (imperialist) exploitation of raw materials and labor from other countries.[10] For example, the US Army has been stealing oil from the Syrian Arab Republic since at least 2019, 14.5 million barrels in the first half of 2022, approximately 83% of Syrian output.[11] “We’re keeping the oil, remember that. We want to keep the oil. Forty-five million dollars a month,” said President Trump in 2019.[12] The Army is also stealing wheat. These commodities enter the US market, whether directly or through the Army, and lower US prices for comparable goods as a result. So, from 2009 to 2020 annual inflation remained below 2.5% per year. In fact, from 1992 to 2020 inflation didn’t go above 3.8% per year.

The US is also looting Europe. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić told Tucker Carlson “that the war in Ukraine, the NATO-led war against Russia, has destroyed the economy of Europe, that the Biden administration’s destruction of Nord Stream is directly or indirectly destroying the German economy, Europe’s largest economy. The consequences of one NATO country effectively attacking another are being felt across Europe,” Carlson paraphrased Vučić’s remarks.[13] As a result, over the first half of the year [2023], 50.6 thousand German companies have already gone bankrupt, Zeit Online reported.[14] A preliminary survey showed that in August 2023 German business activity contracted at the fastest pace for more than three years. The HCOB German Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, fell to 44.7 from July’s 48.5, hitting its lowest since May 2020 and confounding analysts’ expectations. A reading below 50 means recession.[15] In the European Union, sanctions against Russia have “killed European competitiveness,” shrinking the EU’s share of global GDP to just 17% – five points down from where it was in 2010, said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the Bled Strategy Forum in Slovenia in August 2023.[16]

All this looting of foreign economies causes problems. One result of wrecking the German economy, the former economic powerhouse of Europe, is that Russia’s economy has surpassed Germany’s in size (see Table 1). The simultaneous reemergence of Russia as a world power threatens to cut off US access to raw materials around the world (e.g., Africa, Middle East): the expectation of that happening will raise prices in the USA. This does not mean inter-imperialist rivalry as some have claimed is the nature of the US-Russia relationship. Rather, Russia is simply defending itself and its allies, such as Syria and Ethiopia.

[1]  https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/unpacking-the-boom-in-us-construction-of-manufacturing-facilities/; and also https://wolfstreet.com/2023/09/03/construction-spending-for-factories-soars-after-decades-in-the-doldrums/#comment-540375/

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi; https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/10/end-of-disinflation-honeymoon-cpi-accelerates-yoy-core-services-cpi-accelerates-mom-durable-goods-prices-normalize-at-nosebleed-levels/

[3] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/07/07/long-view-of-job-growth-by-industry-some-gained-jobs-at-others-jobs-got-crushed/

[4] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/21/powells-inflation-nightmare-job-seekers-incl-the-employed-suddenly-expect-massively-higher-wages-in-job-offers/

[5] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/25/powell-smacks-down-calls-to-raise-2-inflation-target-2-is-and-will-remain-our-inflation-target/

[6] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/22/home-sales-plunge-further-as-demand-vanished-at-these-prices-even-cash-buyers-pull-back-supply-keeps-rising/

[7] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/10/end-of-disinflation-honeymoon-cpi-accelerates-yoy-core-services-cpi-accelerates-mom-durable-goods-prices-normalize-at-nosebleed-levels/

[8] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/08/25/powell-smacks-down-calls-to-raise-2-inflation-target-2-is-and-will-remain-our-inflation-target/

[9] https://wolfstreet.com/2023/09/05/gasoline-prices-rise-year-over-year-for-first-time-since-feb-2022-cpi-inflation-to-feel-the-heat-this-year/

[10] Daly, Dr. Robert, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” in The Communist Vol. 2, 2022, pp. 62-63.

[11] https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/us-occupying-forces-steal-more-80-cent-syrias-oil-ministry-says/; https://english.news.cn/20220817/437cb1bd33ea40999cda96c521f31d21/c.html/

[12] https://www.bbc.com/news/50464561/

[13] https://t.me/Slavyangrad/59622

[14] That’s 12% higher than the same period last year.

https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/2023-08/statistisches-bundesamt-betriebe-gewerbe-aufgegeben/

[15] https://t.me/rtnews/46647/

[16] https://www.rt.com/news/582058-eu-bad-shape-hungary-ukraine/

The post Factory Construction Boom May Pull US Economy Out of Crisis appeared first on The Communist.

We, the participants in the International Anti-Fascist Forum from the countries of Asia, America and Europe, have gathered in Minsk to say a firm “No!” to war and reaction, neo-Fascism and oppression.

We have met in the land of Belarus, every inch of which has been washed in the blood of millions of the victims of Hitlerism. It is here that in June 1941 began the sacred war of the whole Soviet people against the Black Plague. One in every three citizens of the Byelorussian SSR was killed or tortured to death as a result of the German Fascist aggression.

Nazism was the direct result of the crisis of capitalism. It grew out of the lust of Big Capital to preserve its power over the working people at any cost. To further their selfish ends the imperialists have embarked on the road of supporting the darkest forces.  They brought to power Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and their ideological accomplices. The Nazis turned from a political fringe into makers of destinies of millions of people.

The peoples of the world have no right to forget the experience of the struggle against Fascism. In 1936, with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, a civil war broke out in Spain. The people’s power was supported by the USSR and many progressive forces. But at the time Fascism turned out to be stronger. This paved the way for the most horrible war in human history. The final decisive steps were taken towards the furnaces and gas chambers of Buchenwald and Mauthausen, Dachau and Sobibor, Majdanek and Oswiecim. 

The tragic lessons of the past should be well known and always remembered! The world has paid a huge price to rid itself of Nazism. The heroes of that struggle have covered themselves with undying glory: soldiers and officers of the Red Army, Allied warriors, fighters of the People’s Liberation Army of China, member of the French and Italian Resistance, participants in the German anti-Fascist underground, Yugoslav and Korean partisans, Polish and Czechoslovak patriots.

The Red flag over the Reichstag in May 1945 is not only a special fact of the past. The meaning of the Great Victory over Fascism reaches out to the future. It sounds like a tocsin appealing to the hearts of new generations.

Today, like in the 1930s, the black smoke of fascism is spreading over the planet. It overcasts the horizon more and more. People of goodwill must show unity and courage in their decisive struggle.

The situation is extremely alarming. Neo-colonialism is rearing its head in Africa and America. The imperialists are whipping up tensions in Asia. Blood is being shed to the roar of cannon in Europe and other corners of the planet. The misery and suffering of people are multiplying. Once again the moaning of the wounded and croaking of the dying are heard. Sorrowful tears of mothers are flowing. Before our eyes the world is about to fall into a gaping abyss in which the sinister outlines of the swastika are emerging.

The treacherous destruction of the USSR, the country which vanquished Fascism, has stirred the world predators. Global capital sensed total impunity. It is imposing its dictatorship by hideous means. The deadly threat of a Fascist revenge is growing every day. The Nazi beast has licked up its old wounds and is fast gathering strength. Emboldened, it is creeping out of its den in search of new victims.

The world evil came back in a neo-liberal guise. It has created a global system of plundering entire countries and peoples. It has stained itself with aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Attempts have been made to overthrow the legitimate governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Byelorussia. Sanction pressure has been unleashed against the peoples of Russia and China, Cuba and the DPRK. Military threats and political blackmail are resorted to.

On the eve of World War II Hitler’s storm troopers were directed by financial capital. In the 21^st century it is guided by the latter-day Nazis. Fascism, which was vanquished 78 years ago, has not disappeared from the face of the earth because the world oligarchy badly needs its services. That is why Nazi riff-raff march in Vilnius and Tallinn. Books are being burned in Kiev. Monuments to Soviet liberator warriors are pulled down in Warsaw. Euro deputies in expensive suits initiate wicked resolutions trying to equate Hitler’s Nazism to Soviet socialism. The Fascist scum is set to take a historical revenge. Direct support of the USA and its NATO allies has elevated Nazi ideology to government level in Ukraine. For many years, Bandera ghouls have been having a bloody ball in Kiev, tormenting the popular masses. They have: turned Ukraine into a concentration camp for dissenters, have shut down media outlets they do not like, banned opposition activities and launched persecution of communists. Reprisals target all those who have preserved the ideal of the brotherhood of peoples and loyalty to the Great Victory over Fascism. The Nazis burned people alive in Odessa, blew up and shot people from behind the corner. Year in and year out the Azov thugs with a wolf hook on their chevrons terrorized Donbas. Its courageous citizens rose up in a liberation struggle against militarism and neo-Nazism.

Western governments are pumping Bandera Ukraine full of weapons. Zelensky already says he wants to have the nuclear weapon. But NATO has failed to slap him on the wrist. On the contrary, it says it is prepared to transform the Ukrainian army according to its standards. And the imbecile people in London are themselves ready to put shells with depleted uranium in the hands of the neo-Nazi regime.

NATO countries are not only spreading deadly weapons. They have deployed their military bases throughout the world. Four hundred biolaboratories in the USA and other countries are conducting experiments with deadly viruses and bacteria. The consequences of these actions may upset peaceful development of entire states. Moreover, they threaten the whole mankind as a biological species.

The communists have always warned that “Fascism is war.” The course of events confirms this. The answer of the peoples can only be one: the Fascist monster must be destroyed. The bacilli of the brown plague are too dangerous. They should be neutralized confidently and swiftly. The price of unconcern may turn out to be extremely high. The atrocities, condemned in Nuremberg, must not be repeated. We have no right to allow the world reaction to perpetrate new bloody crimes.

The acts and intentions of the imperialist West are soaked in vicious hatred of everything progressive, sovereign and free. Biden and Scholz, von der Leyen and Borrel, Duda and Morawiecki and their ilk are but auxiliary personnel in the system of global dictatorship. Their career prospects are directly determined by their readiness to serve the interests of the world financial oligarchy.

The globalists cover up their actions by pseudo-intellectual studies. They pluck the most reactionary ideas from the theories of Nietzsche, Chamberlain and Gobineau about the “superman” and “race superiority.” They brew their grim cocktail from neo-Malthusianism and post-humanism. They put forward man-hating nonsense about the “priority of technological progress over social development.” They pass off for humanism praise of vices and perversions. Klaus Schwab and his ilk pack the old ideas that inspired Hitler and his accomplices in pseudo-scientific “bioengineering” wrapping.

All this sham “innovation” is hostile to the peoples. It is promoted by those who are afflicted with ethnic and race prejudices, those who desire to take revenge on peoples for the victory over Fascism and colonialism. These circles are possessed by the idea of total control over humankind. Declaring that they cancel the Great Russian culture, they seek to destroy the humanistic culture of the whole world and to throw us back to the times of untold savagery and an electronic concentration camp.

Neoliberalism is a vicious enemy of any independent development and democratic norms. The political forces in the West have degenerated into absolute autocracies. The bourgeois elites have lost touch with the values of freedom and humanism. Their behavior is opening ever wider the doors for neo-Fascism.

Writhing in agony, capitalism is clinging to life at all costs. It is not afraid of a reincarnation of Fascism. The world reaction merely encourages the heirs of Hitler and Mussolini, Franco and Salazar, Antonescu and Mannerheim, Pilsudski and Quisling. They are furiously destroying the memory of the Second World War and falsifying historical facts.

The plans of “a new world order” end up in aggression and conflicts, neo-Fascism and neocolonialism, and the threat of a new world war. The whole world is becoming a battlefield. It is our duty to win this battle in the name of all the best that has been created by world culture, in the name of a worthy future for humankind!

The key to success is the unity and cohesion of the peace-loving forces of the planet. A victorious resistance to world reaction can only succeed if it is worldwide. We are deeply convinced that our international solidarity can safeguard humankind against the Fascist threat and the slide into the abyss of a world war. We declare it firmly here in Byelorussia. On this sacred land the sense of inseparable link between the past, present and future is particularly acute.

Dear friends, in the flaming days of the Second World War a great militant alliance was formed against Fascist barbarism – a union of communists and patriots, fighters against tyranny and democrats. It was created in spite of social and ideological differences, and different political and religious views. This is the bidding of the time. The new era of trials calls for unity of actions of all the people of goodwill.

Let us then unite in the struggle against neo-Nazism, reaction and militarism!

Long live the united front of progressive forces!

Long live the solidarity of the working peoples and nations in the struggle against Fascism!

Do not allow the world to be blown up!¡No pasarán! They shall not pass!

The post Safeguard Humankind Against Fascism appeared first on The Communist.

Careening down narrow mountain roads, you are a passenger in a vehicle driven by a madman whose every move brings you closer to disaster. That’s the West’s economy and its stewards in a nutshell. Maybe collapse will be avoided by the time this article appears, but it’s not guaranteed.

The US Federal Reserve (hereafter, “the Fed”) has been increasing the money supply at a fantastic rate since the year 2000 to fund banks and investment houses to buy stocks, bonds and other financial assets and real estate for themselves and their wealthy clients under the Fed’s outrageous “Wealth effect” policy.^[1] In October 2019 this game produced yet another crisis in the “Repo” financial market, like the one that brought down the economy in 2008. The Fed tried to bailout the Repo market but the market kept exploding (see Figure 1). Finally, in March 2020 the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) together with the lockdowns calmed markets as the Fed flooded the world with still more trillions, rapidly, in the biggest bank bailout ever. The flood of money has brought inflation to the US and the rest of the Western world, measured in July 2022 as 8.3% in the USA,^[2] 10.9% in Germany,^[3] the sort of inflation normally restricted to developing countries. This inflation is the smoke from the raging fire of a severe economic crisis still in progress. Let’s review the background.

The top curve of Figure 2 shows the fantastic growth in wealth of the households of the top 0.1% of USA millionaires and billionaires since the year 2000. This expansion in their wealth caused the crisis. Wolf Richter writes:

“What kind of outrageous gift they got from the Fed’s money printing and interest rate repression…It was also the greatest economic injustice committed in recent US history over such a short period of time. These monetary policies are largely responsible for the worst inflation in 4 decades that is mauling the “Bottom 50%” of households because they have so little, and spend all their money on necessities…”^[4]

The top 0.1% rode the huge balloon in the US money supply from 4 trillion in 2000 to 22 trillion now (see Figure 3). Karl Marx warned in Capital:

“If the quantity of paper money represents twice the amount of gold available, then in practice £1 would be the money-name not of 1/4 of an ounce of gold, but of 1/8 of an ounce…The values previously expressed by the price of £1 would now be expressed by the price of £2.”^[5]

The reason for the doubling of the price is that there is twice as much money demanding the same quantity of use values, that is, useful goods or services that people are interested in purchasing. For as Marx says, “Use values…are the material bearers of exchange value,”^[6] or price. Between 2000 and 2022, the US money supply increased four and half times. Based on Marx’s reasoning, which is shared by many other economists, prices would be expected to increase 4 and a half times or 450% during such a period (2000—2022), all things being equal. But the consumer price index (CPI) increased only 75 percent from 169 in January 2000 to 296 in August 2022.^[7] The index didn’t even double. If somehow during such increase of the money supply additional use values entered the market and became available, the inflation would be less, since there would be additional real goods to correspond to the increase in demand for goods in the form of the increase in the money supply. Did US industrial production increase during this period to produce the needed use values? Table I says No: It shows that industrial production declined in several core areas. No, sufficient use values did not enter the US market from internal production, but rather from abroad. Under the regime of imperialism, use value is brought into the US economy from abroad at very low cost and this use value supports the American currency and retards or prevents inflation. One clear mechanism for this moderation of inflation is the ‘importation’ of raw materials from developing sector economies, such as the oil that the US Army has looted from Syria during its ongoing occupation of the eastern part of the country, or the lithium that Elon Musk’s companies are removing from south America for electric car batteries. These free or cheap raw materials ‘imports’ reduce production costs for American companies and reduce prices, as follows: As Marx has shown,^[8] the price of a manufactured article is broken down into the constant capital (C) and variable capital (V) that went into its production together with surplus value (S) or profit. Constant capital (C) is the cost of replacing raw materials and manufacturing plant and equipment; variable capital (V) is the cost of sustaining and reproducing labor. Look at Marx’s representation of the price of an ell of linen in Figure 4, example I. The price is 2 shillings. With imperialist raw materials imports from the developing sector, the constant capital component of the cost could be reduced from 80 Pounds, for example, to, say, 20 Pounds, and then the price of the ell of linen would be cut in half to 1 shilling. This constantly in-effect mechanism reduces price inflation in imperialist economies. Importing finished goods, e.g., clothing, from cheap labor markets also retards inflation, because then both constant capital and variable capital costs are lower. Americans should not worry about the 8% inflation that they are experiencing. Based on the expansion of the money supply, they should expect approximately 20% inflation per year since the year 2000.^[9]

Another peculiarity in the inflation data is that Germany’s inflation exceeds that of the US: Germany is a highly industrialized country with a strong basic industry producing steel, machine tools, agricultural equipment and automobiles. Why is their publicly announced rate of inflation of 10.9% higher than that of the US? There are two primary reasons. First, Germany does not benefit from imperialist hegemony over the vast regions of the world from which the US extracts value. Second, the US also dominates Germany and forces it to buy its expensive products, e.g., Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).

All this is very troubling, but why, out of the blue, have we got inflation now since Spring 2021? First, the money supply went through the roof in 2020. That’s the last big jump in Figure 3. That’s the effect of the CARES Act. The US had to do it because of the pandemic, right? Wrong. As Marx wrote in his Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, the reasons people give for doing something are ideological and usually not the reasons they actually do them, which are economic.

Marx wrote:

“It is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production…and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.”^[10]

The economic reason for the hyperinflationary CARES Act was the crisis in financial markets from Fall 2019 to March 2020, as shown in Figure 1. What especially aggravated the financial system was the government’s response to the crisis in the Repurchase (Repo) Market in 2019. The Repo Market is where giant financial institutions borrow trillions of dollars from each other and from central banks every day, often just for overnight. The Repo Market was what brought down the economy in 2008. From 2010 to 2019 it was relatively calm: Banks and corporations traded Repos with no seeming problem. Then in Fall 2019 lenders began to distrust the collateral that their Repo borrowers were putting up to secure their loans. They refused to extend credit. The Fed stepped in as in 2008 and bought up the outstanding Repos that lenders refused to buy. Again, the Fed bailed out the investment banks that had gotten themselves into trouble as in 2008. The amount of Repos purchased by the Fed per day grew from zero on September 4, 2019, to 200 Billion in October and exploded to 450 Billion in March 2020. The government then had two responses: First, the lockdowns. Because they shut down the economy, they eliminated pressures on financial markets, and the Repo market began to settle down. Then the CARES Act provided the biggest bailout to NY banks in the history of the country—at first $2 Trillion (including $290 Billion in payments to taxpayers who had to hand it back to the banks again in Covid-19 Lockdown emergency spending). In 2020 and 2021 the money supply increased by $4.8 trillion. Inflation exploded in 2021 and jumped from 1.7% per year in February to 5% in May, and now up to 8%.^[11] So, the cause of the inflation is the government’s attempt to stabilize financial markets. Why did the Repo market get jittery? It all comes down to real value, or rather the absence of it in the US economy. In the last few years, the world economy’s big actors outside the West—the BRICS countries, China, Russia, India, etc.—have been moving away from using the US dollar as their reserve currency, as the currency in which all international trade takes place.[12] The US has bullied the world with the hegemony of the dollar, and the world got tired of it. Now the world is trading in Rubles and other currencies. Instead of the Petrodollar, we have the Petroruble. The dominance of the dollar was the dollar’s only support. With the decline of the Petrodollar comes the decline of the US economy, first signaled by the highest rate of inflation in over 40 years. The US is on the way down.

The Federal Reserve piggy bank has been pumping out money for its friends in investment banking like mad. They all got rich; we got inflation and economic crisis. This is the way it works, according to 18^th century Irish political economist Richard Cantillon: The people who are closest to where the new money enters the economy—investment bankers—can benefit from the new money before prices rise. They buy new homes, land, gold, stocks and other investments. But the people who are farthest away from where the new money enters the economy—that’s wage earners—suffer from the inflation it causes. Cantillon explains:

In general, an increase of hard money in a state will cause a corresponding increase in consumption and this will gradually produce increased prices…Those who will suffer from these higher prices and increased consumption will be…all the workmen or fixed wage earners who support their families on a salary. They all must diminish their expenditures in proportion to the new consumption [by the rich].^[13]

That’s the Cantillon effect. So, Wall Street grabs up all the value in the economy with the new money pumped out by its friends at the Federal Reserve. What’s left for us is the inflation they caused by expanding the money supply without expanding the real economy of manufacturing, construction, transportation and energy production. Look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on inflation and you will see that wage earners suffer the highest rate of inflation in the country, a 9.1% annual rate in July 2020, while the average rate for everybody, bankers and wage workers included, was 8.5%. Under the Cantillon Effect wage earners suffer higher inflation that anyone else. This is one of the processes that drives inequality. The working poor suffer the highest inflation. Figure 5 from a Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows price increases by social group since 2003. The top curve shows the highest inflation rate suffered by the lowest income quartile, the 25% of Americans with the lowest income share in the country. The bottom curve shows the lowest inflation enjoyed by the highest income quartile, the richest 25% of the population.^[14] The average annual rates of inflation by social group are given in Table 2. That brings us back to square 1, the economic injustice we referred to at the top. The growth in speculative investment that has been going on for decades, has driven up US “gross domestic product” (GDP) per capita from $20,000 in 1968 to $46,000 in 2014 in fixed 2005 dollars at a nearly constant rate of $565 per year. That increase does not represent an increase in real goods and services but rather the paper wealth of the Wall Street millionaires averaged over the whole population, for US industrial production has collapsed. This same process has driven down the relative incomes of everyone else since 1968, for as Figure 6 shows, the ratio of the income share of the lower 80% to the income share of the highest quintile has fallen from 135% in 1968 to 95% in 2014. For more than 50 years, finance capital—the Federal Reserve banks, the big commercial banks, the investment banks—have been sucking wealth out of the US population and the world at a fantastic rate. Like Cantillon, many ‘conservatives’ oppose the Fed’s monetary and ‘wealth’ policies. These conservatives represent industrial capital, not finance capital.

[1] https://wolfstreet.com/wealth-effect/

[2] Reported by Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[3] https://wolfstreet.com/2022/09/30/eurozone-inflation-spikes-to-10-in-germany-10-9-without-energy-6-4-from-temporary-inflation-mid-2021-to-runaway-inflation/

[4] https://wolfstreet.com/2022/09/26/my-wealth-disparity-monitor-september-update-qt-rate-hikes-dropping-stocks-bonds-reduce-outrageous-us-wealth-disparity/

[5] Marx, Karl, Capital, vol. 1; Penguin: London, 1976, Chapter on Money, section on “Coin and symbols of value,” p. 225.

[6] Ibid., p. 126.

[7] Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[8] Marx, Op. Cit., p. 962.

[9] If the money supply increases 450% over 22 years (from 4 trillion to 22 trillion), then so do prices, which inflation would average to 20% per year.

[10] K. Marx, “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859; translation from edition of Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977

[11] Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[12] On ruble-rupee trade, cf. https://www.rt.com/business/562727-russia-india-trade-doubles/ and https://www.iasparliament.com/current-affairs/rupee-rouble-trade-arrangement

[13] Richard Cantillon, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, Paris, 1755, Pt. 2, Ch. 6; translated as An Essay on Economic Theory by C. Saucier, published by Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010.

[14] J. Klick and A. Stockburger, “Experimental CPI for lower and higher income households,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Working Paper 537 March 8, 2021

The post Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire appeared first on The Communist.

While Taiwan and the mainland have been separated for 70 years, efforts to reduce tension and increase communication and cooperation have never ceased. Cross-Strait relations have witnessed one breakthrough after another over the years, from the open letters to Taiwan compatriots to the development of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy and the basic strategy for national reunification; from the 1992 Consensus to the first-ever historic meeting between leaders from the two sides; from total separation to direct two-way links in postal mail, transportation, and trade; and from the early years, when Taiwan was expelled from the UN, to efforts to defeat attempts at Taiwan independence. 

As we now look upon cross-Strait relations from a new starting point, we can see an overwhelming and unstoppable historical trend for national reunification. In his speech at a conference commemorating the publication of the “Letter to Taiwan Compatriots” issued by the Standing Committee of the NPC 40 years ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping elaborated on China’s policies and positions in the new era for peaceful reunification, demonstrating political wisdom and historical responsibility for a solution to the question of Taiwan. Listening to his convincing words, we realize even more that national renewal and reunification represent a historical trend, a cause to fight for, and a goal that we all want to achieve. 

Peaceful reunification depends on national rejuvenation. The fact that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait remain separated is a wound left over from history. It is said that “the Taiwan question was created at a time when China was a weak and chaotic country, but it will end with the rejuvenation of the nation.” As the Chinese nation moves forward with its renewal, we will see a much stronger force for national reunification under more favorable economic, political, and cultural conditions. People in Taiwan will, of course, be a part of this great journey, joining hands with the people on the mainland in the drive to achieve their dream for national renewal. 

Integrated development is a sure path to peaceful reunification. In times of great changes, the mainland and Taiwan must work together through thick and thin as we move forward with a shared future and intertwined interests. To realize national reunification, it is essential for people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to have the same goals, which are in turn enabled by more communication and connectivity. As requested by General Secretary Xi Jinping, connections with Taiwan should be improved to the greatest extent possible. In particular, as soon as possible, we need to ensure water, electricity, and gas supplies to Kinmen and Matsu from the coastal areas of Fujian and build bridges wherever possible so that people in Taiwan may benefit from development in the mainland. We must also make sure that Taiwanese residents and businesses in the mainland enjoy equal treatment and access to equal, inclusive, and convenient public services.

Countercurrents against peaceful reunification must be curbed. General Secretary Xi Jinping stated categorically that nothing can change the fact that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese with the same national identity, and nothing can stop the trend toward reunification of the Chinese nation. Taiwan independence goes against this unstoppable trend and will eventually be crushed by the wheels of history. Chinese must not fight against Chinese, and for this purpose we have made the greatest efforts for peaceful reunification with the utmost sincerity. However, we do not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures to prepare for possible interference by external forces and separatist activities by a handful of “Taiwan independence” separatists. Such measures would certainly not be targeted at the people of Taiwan.

The residence permit for Taiwan residents is a permit available to Taiwan residents who come to work, study, live, and travel in the mainland, with protection provided for the legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan residents on the mainland. On August 6, 2018, the General Office of the State Council published the procedures for the application and issuance of residence permits for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Residents, and the permit system took effect on September 1, 2018.

The Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) is a public organization established in Beijing on December 16, 1991, for the purpose of promoting peaceful reunification. Entrusted by the mainland authorities, it handles communications with its counterpart in Taiwan on issues regarding cross-Strait exchanges and is authorized to conclude relevant agreements. The Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) was established in Taiwan on November 21, 1990. It is a non-governmental organization authorized by the Taiwanese authorities to handle cross-Strait affairs. Since the beginning of the 1990s, ARATS and SEF, under authorization from the authorities on both sides, have been holding talks and dialogues for the purpose of promoting economic, trade, scientific, technological, and cultural exchanges between the two sides. Pictured here are ARATS and SEF representatives signing official documents.  We may not be able to decide on what has happened in the past, but we can certainly seize the moment and choose our future. Seventy years have passed, and that is long enough to let bygones be bygones and leave bitterness, hate, and separation behind us. Looking to the future, we have every reason to believe that we can build the mutual trust that allays misgivings, that we can increase communication and clear up misunderstanding, and that we can let peace prevail over conflict. People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, working together, will usher in a bright future for the country as we realize the reunification of the Chinese nation and achieve the goal of national rejuvenation.

The post National Reunification Across The Taiwan Strait — An Inevitable Trend appeared first on The Communist.

In carrying on a struggle against the Trotskyite agents, our Party comrades did not notice, they overlooked the fact, that present day Trotskyism is no longer what it was, let us say, seven or eight years ago; that Trotskyism and the Trotskyites have passed through a serious evolution in this period which has utterly changed the face of Trotskyism; that in view of this the struggle against Trotskyism and the method of struggle against it must also be utterly changed. Our Party comrades did not notice that Trotskyism has ceased to be a political trend in the working class, that it has changed from the political trend in the working class which it was seven or eight years ago, into a frantic and unprincipled gang of wreckers, diversionists, spies and murderers acting on the instructions of the intelligence services of foreign states.

What is a political trend in the working class? A political trend in the working class is a group or a party which has its own definite political face, platform and program, which does not and cannot hide its views from the working class but, on the contrary, openly and honestly carries on propaganda for its views in full view of the working class, does not fear to show its political face to the working class, does not fear to demonstrate its real aims and tasks to the working class but, on the contrary, goes to the working class with open visor to convince it of the correctness of its views. In the past, seven or eight years ago, Trotskyism was one of such political trends in the working class, an anti-Leninist trend, it is true, and therefore profoundly mistaken, but nevertheless a political trend.

Can it be said that present-day Trotskyism, the 1936 Trotskyism, let us say, is a political trend in the working class? No, this cannot be said. Why? Because the present-day Trotskyites are afraid to show their real face to the working class, are afraid to disclose their real aims and tasks to it, and carefully hide their political face from the working class, fearing that if the working class should learn of their real intentions it will curse them as an alien people and drive them from it. This in reality explains how it is that the chief method of Trotskyite work is now not open and honest propaganda of its views among the working class, but the masking of its views, servile and fawning praise for the views of its opponents, a false and pharisaical trampling of its own views in the dirt.

If you remember, Kamenev and Zinoviev at the trial in 1936 strenuously denied that they had any political platform. It was fully possible for them to develop their political platform at the trial. But they did not do so, declaring that they had no political platform. There can be no doubt that both of them were lying when they denied that they had a platform. Even the blind can now see that they had their political platform. But why did they deny the existence of any political platform?

Because they were afraid to disclose their real political face, they were afraid to demonstrate their real platform for the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R., fearing that such a platform would arouse revulsion in the working class.

At the trial in 1937, Piatakov, Radek and Sokolnikov took a different line. They did not deny that the Trotskyites and Zinovievites had a political platform. They admitted that they had a definite political platform, recognized and unfolded it in their testimony. But they unfolded it not to call on the working class, not to call on the people to support the Trotskyite platform, but in order to curse it and brand it as an anti-people’s and anti-proletarian platform.

The restoration of capitalism, the liquidation of the collective farms and state farms, the restoration of the system of exploitation, an alliance with the fascist forces of Germany and Japan to bring war against the Soviet Union nearer, a struggle for war and against the policy of peace, the territorial dismemberment of the Soviet Union, giving the Ukraine to the Germans and the maritime provinces to the Japanese, the preparation of the military defeat of the Soviet Union if enemy slates should attack it, and, as a means of achieving these tasks, wrecking, diversion, individual terrorism against the leaders of the Soviet government, espionage for the benefit of the Japanese and German fascist forces — such was the political platform of present day Trotskyism which was set forth by Piatakov, Radek and Sokolnikov.

Naturally the Trotskyites could not but hide such a platform from the people, from the working class. And they hid it not only from the working class but also from the Trotskyite rank and file, and not only front the Trotskyite rank and file but even from the leading group of the Trotskyites, consisting of a small handful of 30 or 40 people. When Radek and Piatakov asked Trotsky’s permission to call a small conference, 30 or 40 people, to inform them of the character of this platform, Trotsky forbade them, saying it was inexpedient to talk of the real nature of the platform even to a small group of Trotskyites as such an “operation” might cause a split.

“Political figures” hiding their views and their platform not only from the working class but also from the Trotskyite rank and file, and not only from the Trotskyite rank and file, but from the leading group or Trotskyites — such is the face of present-day Trotskyism.

But it follows from this that present-day Trotskyism can no longer be called a political trend in the working class. Present-day Trotskyism is not a political trend in the working class but a gang without principle, without ideas, of wreckers, diversionists, intelligence service agents, spies, murderers, a gang of sworn enemies of the working class, working in the pay of the intelligence services or foreign states.

Such is the indisputable result of the evolution of Trotskyism in the past seven or eight years.

Such is the difference between Trotskyism in the past and Trotskyism at the present time.

The mistake of our Party comrades is that they did not notice this profound difference between Trotskyism in the past and Trotskyism at the present time. They did not notice that the Trotskyites have long since ceased to be people devoted to an idea, that the Trotskyites have long since turned into highway robbers, capable of any foulness, capable of all that is disgusting, to the point of espionage and the outright betrayal of their country, if only they can harm the Soviet government and Soviet power. They did not notice this and were therefore unable to reconstruct themselves in time to wage battle against the Trotskyites in a new and more regular manner. This is why the abominable work of the Trotskyites of late years was a complete surprise for some of our Party comrades.

To proceed. Finally, our Party comrades did not notice that there is an important difference between the present-day wreckers and diversionists, on the one hand, among whom the Trotskyite agents of fascism play “an active part”, and the wreckers and diversionists of the time of the Shakhty trial, on the other hand.

In the first place, the Shakhty and Industrial Party wreckers were people openly alien to us. They were in greater part former owners of factories, former managers for the old employers, former shareholders of old joint-stock companies, or simple bourgeois specialists who were openly hostile to us politically. None of our people had any doubt about the authenticity of the political face of these gentlemen. And the Shakhty wreckers themselves did not conceal their distaste for the Soviet system.

The same cannot be said of the present-day wreckers and diversionists, the Trotskyites. The present-day wreckers and diversionists, the Trotskyites, are mostly Party people with a Party card in their pocket, and consequently people who formally are not alien to us.

Whereas the old wreckers went against our people, the new wreckers on the contrary cringe to our people, laud them, lick their boots, in order to worm their way into their confidence. As you see, the difference is essential.

In the second place, the strength of the Shakhty and Industrial Party wreckers was that to a greater or lesser degree they possessed the necessary technical knowledge, while our people, not possessing such knowledge, were forced to learn from them. This circumstance gave a great advantage to the wreckers of the Shakhty period, made it possible for them to do their wrecking work free and unhindered, made it possible for them to deceive our people technically.

This is not so with the present-day wreckers, with the Trotskyites. The present-day wreckers have no technical superiority over our people. On the contrary, our people are better trained technically than the present-day wreckers, than the Trotskyites. During the time from the Shakhty period to our own days, tens of thousands of genuine, technically strong Bolshevik cadres have grown up among us. One could mention thousands and tens of thousands of Bolshevik leading figures technically developed in comparison with whom all such people as Piatakov and Livshitz, Shestov and Boguslavsky, Muralov and Drobnis are empty windbags and mere tyros from the point of view of technical training. In this case, what does the strength of the present-day wreckers, the Trotskyites, consist of? Their strength lies in the Party card, in the possession of a Party card. This strength lies in the fact that the Party card gives them political trust and opens the doors of all our institutions and organizations to them.

Their advantage lies in the fact that holding a Party card and pretending to be friends of the Soviet power they tricked our people politically, misused their confidence, did their wrecking work furtively, and disclosed our secrets of state to the enemies of the Soviet Union. This “advantage” is a doubtful one in its political and moral values, but still, it is an “advantage”. This “advantage”, in reality, explains the fact that the Trotskyite [ultraleft – ed.] wreckers, as people with a Party card having access to all places in our institutions and organizations, were a real windfall for the intelligence services of foreign states. The mistake of some of our Party comrades is that they did not notice, did not understand all this difference between the old and the new wreckers between the Shakhty wreckers and the Trotskyites, and not noticing this, they were unable to reconstruct themselves in time so as to wage battle against the new wreckers in a new way.

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Social and political movements in a sense develop in similar ways. When the social molecules become agitated it results in mass upheavals, the waves of radicalization. Class contradictions and relations sharpen up. This propels the revolutionary process. It results in new levels of mass class and socialists consciousness. There is a speedy growth of movements and organizations. They also become tempered and purified in the struggle. Such is the path of revolutionary development.

A Product Of Frustration

But such moments also give birth to momentary political “bubbles.” As in steel, many of them also come and go. Some are serious movements that reflect momentary issues. They disappear when the issues are resolved. But others turn into petty-bourgeois radical expressions — petty-bourgeois reflections of the issues and the problems of the moment.

Such movements are especially a phenomenon in periods when great numbers–new waves–of people move into action. Like all sectors, the petty-bourgeois strata tend to reflect their class position when they react to the issues of the class struggle. They develop moments of great militancy. At such moments they are a source of inspiration and militancy to other sectors, including the working class. But they tend to go for short-term tactics. When this does not result in victories, for some the militancy, the enthusiasm, turns into petty-bourgeois radicalism. It is necessary to make a sharp distinction between the healthy militancy and determination expressed by non-working class sectors and the concepts of petty-bourgeois radicalism. Petty-bourgeois radicalism is a by-product of a sense of frustration.

When concepts based on unreality are bounced back by reality it results in frustration.

A secondary cause for the frustration is the occurrence of opportunist, passive tendencies and problems in the ranks of other sectors, including the working class.

The concepts, the ideas, motivating petty-bourgeois radicalism are not necessarily wrong in the abstract. Those who follow wrong concepts, in most cases, are dedicated and sincere individuals. The concepts are wrong when they do not reflect the specific reality of the moment. Therefore, the more determined such individuals are, the more damaging they can be. Good intentions and even good ideas are not enough. One of the key ingredients in a revolutionary struggle is people in mass. People do not respond to commands or to exhortations. They do not respond to ideas–even good ideas–if they do not see their self-interests involved in these ideas.

The inner laws of capitalism, the laws of exploitation, the inherent drive for profit, the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private appropriation of its products are all factors that force the victims in mass more and more to see their self-interests related to the more basic and revolutionary ideas. Policies and tactics, to be successful, must be related to this objective process. A revolutionary force must take full advantage of each new situation presented by this process. Only then can it become a revolutionary force propelling events. Tactics must be synchronized to each stage of this development.

The very essence of capitalism is class exploitation. It is exploitation of people, again in mass. The essence of any struggle is the class struggle. The central moving force is the exploited class–the working class.

Concepts of struggle not based on the above reality will sooner or later come into conflict with it. The advocates of petty-bourgeois radicalism try to bypass this reality. They believe they can avoid the necessary and unavoidable consistent and sustained work, the work of organizing, educating, mobilizing and leading people in mass, of leading people on the level of their understanding, of their own self-interest, and in this sense reflecting the objective processes leading to a revolutionary struggle against capitalism. For this they seek to substitute radical rhetoric with general slogans, or advanced actions that have no relationship to struggles to which the masses do respond. Thus, when the concepts based on unreality meet the reality of class struggle they bounce back. If such tactics are further pursued they become an obstacle to struggle. They become a destructive and divisive force. Organized groups which pursue such policies not only tend to move away from the working class, but they reject mass concepts of struggle altogether.

The relationships between the objective processes and the tactics of struggle are not simple. It is an intricate process. The lines are not clean-cut and even that which is negative, in the long run, can have momentary positive influences. It is not always easy to draw the line between passivity that is motivated by opportunistic considerations and a judgment that is based on a correct, necessary tactical consideration. And it is not easy always to see the line between a militancy that is necessary to propel the struggle to new heights, or a necessary advanced position or action by a more limited force, and ill-advised actions that alienate and separate the advanced force form its mass base.

Petty-bourgeois radicalism as a concept is now in a serious crisis. Masses have moved to new levels of political consciousness and to higher forms of struggle [sic]. Generally, petty-bourgeois radical concepts go into a crisis when working-class concepts of struggle are on the ascendancy.

An Old Problem

Petty-bourgeois radicalism is not a new phenomenon. It has emerged as a problem throughout the history of the world revolutionary movement. Petty-bourgeois radicalism has had a historic run in the recent period. The wave has touched most of the non-socialist world.

A special brand of petty-bourgeois radicalism made deep inroads and influenced the policies of the leading cadre of the Communist Party of China. Throughout its history the Maoist influence has been a petty-bourgeois radical influence. In its basic essence the Cultural Revolution was propelled by a mass petty-bourgeois radical sweep. This is a special brand of petty-bourgeois radicalism because it takes place in a country that is building socialism. It is a special brand because the leading core of the leadership used it as an instrument in the struggle to stay in power. It is a special brand because in China it was woven into a pattern with bourgeois nationalism. Mao’s policies have always been and are today based on mobilizing the non-working class sections. It was the destruction of the organizations and politics based on the working class that were the main objectives of the Cultural Revolution.

The Debray theories of revolution were an extension of these petty-bourgeois radical concepts. All variations of petty-bourgeois radicalism come into conflict with the class approach to struggle. They reject the class struggle as the vehicle for social progress. They reflect the individualism, the lack of class identification of petty-bourgeois elements generally. They reject policies and tactics that are based on mobilizing the working class–the one class history has designated as a basic contingent in the struggle for social progress. In fact, petty-bourgeois radicalism rejects the role of the one revolutionary class in society.

Thus, the very premise of petty-bourgeois radicalism is that it is impossible to win the working class in the struggle against capitalism. From this it follows that mass concepts of struggle are not possible, necessary, or realistic. This leads to actions based on small elite groups—or to individual action. Because this concept is not concerned with winning over masses, it promotes and condones actions that alienate masses. There is an inner logic to this path. Specific actions are taken because there is a lack of confidence in mass–in class–actions. These ill-considered actions result in widening the gap between the petty-bourgeois radical movements and the masses. This widening gap then becomes “proof” that you cannot win masses and therefore the line of conduct of these movements is justified. Each step leads to a further isolation. This is the inner logic of petty-bourgeois radicalism.

This has been the path of world Trotskyism, the classical movement of petty-bourgeois radicalism. It had its genesis with Trotsky’s rejection of the working class as a basic revolutionary force. He also substituted radical-sounding rhetoric for the class struggle. Trotskyism has remained a worldwide petty-bourgeois radical current. It remains a negative, a divisive, and a disruptive current. Because of its basically incorrect position it is not surprising that in the very center of its work has been the attack, the slander, against a country where the working class is in power–the Soviet Union.

When the working class either takes other paths of struggle or when it does not move because of the influences of opportunism, petty-bourgeois radicalism becomes a more serious problem. This also has its inner logic which results in such radicalism becoming an obstacle to mobilizing and moving the working class.

Crisis And Decline

As in the US, the world wave of petty-bourgeois radicalism is now also in a crisis and in the declining phase of the present cycle. It is a world crisis of petty-bourgeois radicalism. Its policies have come up against the realities of the class struggle. Masses have gained new experiences in the fires of the class struggle. They are now rejecting petty-bourgeois concepts as divisive and impractical.

The problems in the struggle against these concepts arise because they seem radical and revolutionary. For many who are influenced by such ideas honestly believe they are the most revolutionary. But when such policies fail–when they do not result in revolutionary victories, those who honestly believe in them face a dilemma. They can go one of three ways. Some give up the struggle. They use many excuses, but in essence they accept the status quo. They move into positions of opportunism. Others, in frustration, move into isolation by accepting the path of anarchism. This path destroys cadre as a meaningful revolutionary force. But most, however, draw the correct conclusions. They move into struggles and movements based on mass concepts. They draw the necessary conclusions that one’s revolutionariness can be measured only in the framework of moving masses into struggle.

It is impossible to struggle against the incorrect concepts of petty-bourgeois radicalism without a consistent and sharp struggle against the forever present influences of Right opportunism. The pressures towards Right opportunism are the most consistent in any capitalist country. They remain the chief danger to the revolutionary movement in the broad mass organizations of the people and the working class. It is impossible to conduct a successful fight against petty-bourgeois radicalism unless there is a consistent, successful fight against the influences of Right opportunism.

Like all political currents, petty-bourgeois radicalism finds expression in the form of specific groups. But like all political currents, it also has influences in most people’s and working-class organizations.

In this past period in the United States, we have witnessed the appearances of numerous petty-bourgeois radical sects. They are all now, to one degree or another, feeling the effects of the crisis of petty-bourgeois radicalism. These groups include the carious varieties of Trotskyism. They include the groups that emerged as a result of the continuous splits of the original forces in the Students for a Democratic Society. They include those that emerged because of the disintegration and the splitting of the Progressive Labor group.

In rejecting petty-bourgeois radicalism we do not need to reject or ignore the positive contributions many of these groups have made. We need not condemn individuals when we reject the concepts of petty-bourgeois radicalism.

Even in their best moments they view their work with the working class as that of missionaries. They all tend to be anti-Communist and even more specifically, anti-Soviet. On these basic class matters they join hands with the Right opportunists. This factor exposes the more basic opportunistic side of petty-bourgeois radicalism. Everyone knows it is easier to be a radical and even a “revolutionary” as long as you are anti-Communist. The enemy is never too disturbed by the most radical speeches of anyone who remains ideologically tied to capitalism by means of anti-Communism. In this sense petty-bourgeois radicalism does a very special favor to capitalism because it covers its anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism with “Left” radical phrases.

For a number of years Mao Tse-Tung gave the world’s petty-bourgeois radical groups a lift. These groups turned to Mao because his thought is the most rounded form of petty-bourgeois radicalism. That it also has its anti-working class and rabidly anti-Soviet features, of course, is no surprise.

But the most important factor of petty-bourgeois radicalism today, including its Maoist features, is that it is in crisis and in the declining phase of its cycle the world over as well as in the United States. The easy catch-all slogans have turned into empty rhetoric. Much of the motion has turned into “bubbles” that are now disappearing.

When the hothouse schemes of instant revolution meet reality they burst like balloons. When this happens petty-bourgeois radicalism blames its failures on the working class. In their frustration many of these sects turn to anarchism, which is only another form of petty-bourgeois radicalism. This is, in fact, one of the features of the present crisis of petty-bourgeois radicalism.

Petty-bourgeois radicalism as a concept rejects the basic class nature of society and the class struggle as a pivotal element in the fight for progress. It rejects the role of mass movements because it does not see its basic ingredient–the working class. A class approach to struggle is of necessity a mass approach. The petty-bourgeois radical rhetoric is a sanctuary for those who have given up the possibilities of leading masses, and in the first place the working-class masses, in struggle. It is a way of keeping a radical image when in fact one has retreated and given up the struggle.

The Story of SDS

The SDS had its birth in the ideological chambers of the Socialist Party. Its present crisis can be clearly traced to the petty-bourgeois radical views that it inherited from the parent body. This is not to negate in any way or detract from the positive contributions of the tens of thousands of young people who have come into the struggle and into the Communist Party through the activities of the SDS. This organization went through many stages of development. It moved from its open anti-working class position to accepting the role of the workers. But even then it saw that role only in relation to the SDS being the “missionary” enlightening the people called “workers”. The SDS never did understand the role of masses as the key factor in struggle.

Because they did not understand the class struggle they tended to reject all concepts of unity, including a unified front of the forces opposing capitalism. This comes from the very nature of petty-bourgeois existence. These sectors do not see themselves as being exploited or oppressed as a class. They do not react to oppression as a class. Unity, a unified front are class-mass concepts. The SDS, even in its best days, rejected these concepts and tended to organize their own actions, asking others to “join them” or “support them.” When they could not have their way they very often boycotted many important mass actions against the U.S. aggression in Vietnam.

Under pressure they constantly slipped into anti-Communist positions. Petty-bourgeois radicalism by its very nature–its class essence being, as it is, that of a group between two basic classes–cannot for long sustain a united organization. Its concept of “participatory democracy” was, in a way, a recognition of this fact. As the working-class upsurge has developed and the class concepts of the struggle have moved into the forefront, petty-bourgeois radicalism has also been evident in the policies of accepting racism. This has been justified by statements like, “We will fight for black-white unity when we have socialism.” For white Americans not to fight racism at all times is racism.

Most who took part in the SDS and the actions that it organized have drawn the correct conclusions. These forces have tended to reject the petty-bourgeois radical concepts. But some, as we know, have moved into channels of anarchism and individual actions. When one is convinced that mass struggles will not achieve results, anarchistic actions seem a realistic way out. Fictitious “communiqués from the underground” threatening violence are infantile. Acts of individual terror at a moment when mass actions and movements are possible and necessary, are actions in the service of reaction. They are damaging to the revolutionary movement. These “communiqués from the underground” and other threats of violence become the most convenient cover for acts of violence by police provocateurs, by enemy agents. Police agents blow up buildings–but the blame is placed on the “Left radical movement.” The fictitious “communiqués from the underground” threatening violence become the canopies under which the enemy conspires to create new Reichstag fire situations.

Another of the petty-bourgeois radical groups now in crisis is the group called Progressive Labor. It got a start as a splinter from the New York City Communist Party. When the Supreme Court upheld the McCarran Act and said the Communist Party was ordered to register its members, finances and officers, a small group in the Party panicked. The Party overwhelmingly decided to stand up and fight. This splinter group was a part of those who fought for a policy of liquidating the Communist Party. They called for its dissolution.

When the Party rejected this they set up their own little group. But right from the beginning it was stamped with their opportunism. Their liquidationist, opportunistic tendency continued in their own organization. They tried to hide and bypass the anti-Communist barrage from the enemy behind a name that said nothing about socialism or communism. Opportunism has been their hallmark. Now life has caught up with their brand of petty-bourgeois radicalism. It has remained a sect becoming ever more isolated–and now the sect has split asunder.

The basically opportunistic approach of Progressive Labor led it along the path of rabid anti-Sovietism. This is opportunism because it is a concession to the central ideological pillar of U.S. imperialism. This same opportunism has led Progressive Labor to compromise with the same struggle against racism under radical phrases and even in the name of the working class. It has followed a policy of accommodation and conciliation with racism. Because of its racist and white chauvinist practices the Black and Puerto Rican members have either been expelled or left the group.

The various Trotskyite sects continue as of old. They continue their splitting tactics in our mass movements, as is clearly shown in their latest efforts to set up a peace movement under their control. Momentarily some of these groups have made some gains. They are carefully covering up their real Trotskyite policies. But the Trotskyite sects are also in a crisis. They are also isolated. Their splitting tactics in all movements flow from their basic petty-bourgeois radical essence. Working-class consciousness leads to concepts of class unity. It leads to rejecting tactics that lead to disunity. Petty-bourgeois radicalism does not see the concept of class or mass struggles. From this it follows that it does not see the need for class unity. It reflects the individualism of its class nature. Petty-bourgeois radicalism is a political trend. It is this political trend that is in a crisis. Militant currents, radical trends, and the revolutionary process–these are not in a crisis. They are features of the mass upheavals. Marxism-Leninism is not in a crisis. It is the growing, the most consistent revolutionary current. It is not in a crisis because it reflects and is changing reality. It is the revolutionary current.

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