We are living in stormy times, when Russia’s history is marching on with seven-league strides, and every year sometimes signifies more than decades of tranquillity. Results of the half-century of the post-Reform period are being summed up, and the corner-stone is being laid for social and political edifices which will determine the fate of the entire country for many, many years to come. The revolutionary movement continues to grow with amazing rapidity—and “our trends” are ripening (and withering) uncommonly fast. Trends firmly rooted in the class system of such a rapidly developing capitalist country as Russia almost immediately reach their own level and feel their way to the classes they are related to. An example is the evolution of Mr. Struve, from whom the revolutionary workers proposed to “tear the mask” of a Marxist only one and a half years ago and who has now himself come forward without this mask as the leader (or servant?) of the liberal landlords, people who take pride in their earthiness and their sober judgement. On the other hand, trends expressing only the traditional instability of views held by the intermediate and indefinite sections of the intelligentsia try to substitute noisy declarations for rapprochement with definite classes, declarations which are all the noisier, the louder the thunder of events. “At least we make an infernal noise”¹—such is the slogan of many revolutionarily minded individuals who have been caught up in the maelstrom of events and who have neither theoretical principles nor social roots.

It is to these “noisy” trends that the “Socialist-Revolutionaries,” whose physiognomy is emerging more and more clearly, also belong. And it is high time for the proletariat to have a better look at this physiognomy, and form a clear idea of the real nature of these people, who seek the proletariat’s friendship all the more persistently, the more palpable it becomes to them that they cannot exist as a separate trend without close ties with the truly revolutionary class of society.

Three circumstances have served most to disclose the true face of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. These are, first, the split between the revolutionary Social-Democrats and the opportunists, who are raising their heads under the banner of the “criticism of Marxism.” Secondly, Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin and the new swing towards terrorism in the sentiments of some revolutionaries. Thirdly and mainly, the latest movement among the peasantry, which has compelled such that are accustomed to sit between two stools and have no programme whatever to come out post factum with some semblance of a programme. We shall proceed to examine these three circumstances, with the reservation that in a newspaper article it is possible to give only a brief outline of the main points in the argument and that we shall in all likelihood return to the subject and expound it in greater detail in a magazine article, or in a pamphlet.²

It was only in No. 2 of Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsti that the Socialist-Revolutionaries finally decided to come out with a theoretical statement of principle, in an unsigned editorial headed “The World Progress and Crisis of Socialism.” We strongly recommend this article to all who want to get a clear idea of utter unprincipledness and vacillation in matters of theory (as well as of the art of concealing this behind a spate of rhetoric). The entire content of this highly noteworthy article may be expressed in a few words. Socialism has grown into a world force, socialism (=Marxism) is now splitting as a result of the war of the revolutionaries (the “orthodox”) against the opportunists (the “critics”). We, Socialist-Revolutionaries, “of course” have never sympathised with opportunism, but we are over-joyed because of the “criticism” which has freed us from   a dogma; we too are working for a revision of this dogma— and although we have as yet nothing at all to show by way of criticism (except bourgeois-opportunist criticism), although we have as yet revised absolutely nothing, it is nevertheless that freedom from theory which redounds to our credit. That redounds to our credit all the more because, as people free of theory, we stand firmly for general unity and vehemently condemn all theoretical disputes over principles. “A serious revolutionary organisation,” Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (No. 2, p. 127) assures us in all seriousness, “would give up trying to settle disputed questions of social theory, which always lead to disunity, although this of course should not hinder theoreticians from seeking their solution”—or, more outspokenly: let the writers do the writing and the readers do the reading³ and in the meantime, while they are busying themselves, we will rejoice at the blank left behind.

There is no need, of course, to engage in a serious analysis of this theory of deviation from socialism (in the event of disputes proper). In our opinion, the crisis of socialism makes it incumbent upon any in the least serious socialists to devote redoubled attention to theory—to adopt more resolutely a strictly definite stand, to draw a sharper line of demarcation between themselves and wavering and unreliable elements. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, if such things as confusion and splits are possible “even among Germans,” then it is God’s will that we, Russians, should pride ourselves on our ignorance of whither we are drifting. In our opinion, the absence of theory deprives a revolutionary trend of the right to existence and inevitably condemns it, sooner or later, to political bankruptcy. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, the absence of theory is a most excellent thing, most favourable “for unity.” As you see, we cannot reach agreement with them, for the fact of the matter is that we even speak different languages. There is one hope: perhaps they will be made to see reason by Mr. Struve, who also (only more seriously) speaks about the elimination of dogma and says that “our” business (as is the, business of any bourgeoisie that appeals to the proletariat) is not to disunite, but to unite. Will not the Socialist-Revolutionaries ever see, with the help of   Mr. Struve, what is really signified by their stand of liberation from socialism for the purpose of unity, and unity on the occasion of liberation from socialism?

Let us go over to the second point, the question of terrorism.

In their defence of terrorism, which the experience of the Russian revolutionary movement has so clearly proved to be ineffective, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are talking themselves blue in the face in asseverating that they recognise terrorism only in conjunction with work among the masses, and that therefore the arguments used by the Russian Social-Democrats to refute the efficacy of this method of struggle (and which have indeed been refuted for a long time to come) do not apply to them. Here something very similar to their attitude towards “criticism” is repeating itself. We are not opportunists, cry the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and at the same time they are shelving the dogma of proletarian socialism, for reason of sheer opportunist criticism and no other. We are not repeating the terrorists’ mistakes and are not diverting attention from work among the masses, the Socialist-Revolutionaries assure us, and at the same time enthusiastically recommend to the Party acts such as Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin, although everyone knows and sees perfectly well that this act was in no way connected with the masses and, moreover, could not have been by reason of the very way in which it was carried out—that the persons who committed this terrorist act neither counted on nor hoped for any definite action or support on the part of the masses. In their naïveté, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally most intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its class struggle. Over-ardent protestations very often lead one to doubt and suspect the worth of whatever it is that requires such strong seasoning. Do not these protestations weary them?—I often think of these words, when I read assurances by the Socialist-Revolutionaries: “by terrorism we are not relegating work among the masses into the background.”After all, these assurances come from the very people who have already   drifted away from the Social-Democratic labour movement, which really rouses the masses; they come from people who are continuing to drift away from this movement, clutching at fragments of any kind of theory.

The leaflet issued by the “Party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries” on April 3,1902, may serve as a splendid illustration of what has been stated above. It is a most realistic source, one that is very close to the immediate leaders, a most authentic source. The “presentation of the question of terrorist struggle” in this leaflet “coincides in full” also “with the Party views,” according to the valuable testimony of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (No. 7, p. 24).⁴

The April 3 leaflet follows the pattern of the terrorists’ “latest” arguments with remarkable accuracy. The first thing that strikes the eye is the words: “we advocate terrorism, not in place of work among the masses, but precisely for and simultaneously with that work.” They strike the eye particularly because these words are printed in letters three times as large as the rest of the text (a device that is of course repeated by Revolutsionnaya Rossiya). It is all really so simple! One has only to set “not in place of, but together with” in bold type—and all the arguments of the Social-Democrats, all that history has taught, will fall to the ground. But just read the whole leaflet and you will see that the protestation in bold type takes the name of the masses in vain. The day “when the working people will emerge from the shadows” and “the mighty popular wave will shatter the iron gates to smithereens”—“alas!” (literally, “alas!”) “is still a long way off, and it is frightful   to think of the future toll of victims!” Do not these words “alas, still a long way off” reflect an utter failure to under stand the mass movement and a lack of faith in it? Is not this argument meant as a deliberate sneer at the fact that the working people are already beginning to rise? And, finally, even if this trite argument were just as well-founded as it is actually stuff and nonsense, what would emerge from it in particularly bold relief would be the inefficacy of terrorism, for without the working people all bombs are power less, patently powerless.

Just listen to what follows: “Every terrorist blow, as it were, takes away part of the strength of the autocracy and transfers [!] all this strength [!] to the side of the fighters for freedom.” “And if terrorism is practised systematically [!], it is obvious that the scales of the balance will finally weigh down on our side.” Yes, indeed, it is obvious to all that we have here in its grossest form one of the greatest prejudices of the terrorists: political assassination of itself “transfers strength”! Thus, on the one hand you have the theory of the transference of strength, and on the other— “not in place of, but together with”…. Do not these protestations weary them?

But this is just the beginning. The real thing is yet to come. “Whom are we to strike down?” asks the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and replies: the ministers, and not the tsar, for “the tsar will not allow matters to go to extremes” (!! How did they find that out??), and besides “it is also easier” (this is literally what they say!): “No minister can ensconce himself in a palace as in a fortress.” And this argument concludes with the following piece of reasoning, which deserves to be immortalised as a model of the “theory” of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. “Against the crowd the autocracy has its soldiers; against the revolutionary organisations its secret and uniformed police; but what will save it…” (what kind of “it” is this? The autocracy? The author has unwittingly identified the autocracy with a target in the person of a minister whom it is easier to strike down!) “… from individuals or small groups that are ceaselessly, and even in ignorance of one another [!!], preparing for attack, and are attacking? No force will be of avail against elusiveness. Hence, our task is clear: to remove every one of the autocracy’s brutal oppressors by the only means that has been left [!] us by the autocracy–death.” No matter how many reams of paper the Socialist-Revolutionaries may fill with assurances that they are not relegating work among the masses into the background or disorganising it by their advocacy of terrorism—their spate of words cannot disprove the fact that the actual psychology of the modern terrorist is faithfully conveyed in the leaflet we have quoted. The theory of the transference of strength finds its natural complement in the theory of elusiveness, a theory which turns upside down, not only all past experience, but all common sense as well. That the only “hope” of the revolution is the “crowd”; that only a revolutionary organisation which leads this crowd (in deed and not in word) can fight against the police—all this is ABC. It is shameful to have to prove this. And only people who have forgotten everything and learned absolutely nothing could have decided “the other way about,” arriving at the fabulous, howling stupidity that the autocracy can be “saved” from the crowd by soldiers, and from the revolutionary organisations by the police, but that there is no salvation from individuals who hunt down ministers!!

This fabulous argument, which we are convinced is destined to become notorious, is by no means simply a curiosity. No, it is instructive because, through a sweeping reduction to an absurdity, it reveals the principal mistake of the terrorists, which they share with the “economists” (perhaps one might already say, with the former representatives of deceased “economism”?). This mistake, as we have already pointed out on numerous occasions, consists in the failure to understand the basic defect of our movement. Because of the extremely rapid growth of the movement, the leaders lagged behind the masses, the revolutionary organisations did not come up to the level of the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, were incapable of marching on in front and leading the masses. That a discrepancy of this sort exists cannot be doubted by any conscientious person who has even the slightest acquaintance with the movement. And if that is so, it is evident that the present-day terrorists are really “economists” turned inside out, going to the equally foolish but opposite extreme. At a time when the revolutionaries are short of the forces and means to lead the masses,   who are already rising, an appeal to resort to such terrorist acts as the organisation of attempts on the lives of ministers by individuals and groups that are not known to one another means, not only thereby breaking off work among the masses, but also introducing downright disorganisation into that work.

We, revolutionaries, “are accustomed to huddling together in timid knots,” we read in the April 3 leaflet, “and even [N.B.] the new, bold spirit that has appeared during the last two or three years has so far done more to raise the sentiments of the crowd than of individuals.” These words unintentionally express much that is true. And it is this very truth that deals a smashing rebuff to the propagandists of terrorism. From this truth every thinking socialist draws the conclusion that it is necessary to use group action more energetically, boldly, and harmoniously. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, conclude: “Shoot, elusive individual, for the knot of people, alas, is still a long way off, and besides there are soldiers against the knot.” This really defies all reason, gentlemen!

Nor does the leaflet eschew the theory of excitative terrorism. “Each time a hero engages in single combat, this arouses in us all a spirit of struggle and courage,” we are told. But we know from the past and see in the present that only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouses a spirit of struggle and courage in all. Single combat however, inasmuch as it remains single combat waged by the Balmashovs, has the immediate effect of simply creating a short-lived sensation, while indirectly it even leads to apathy and passive waiting for the next bout. We are further assured that “every flash of terrorism lights up the mind,” which, unfortunately, we have not noticed to be the case with the terrorism-preaching party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. We are presented with the theory of big work and petty work. “Let not those who have greater strength, greater opportunities and resolution rest content with petty [!] work; let them find and devote themselves to a big cause—the propaganda of terrorism among the masses [!l, the preparation of the intricate… [the theory of elusiveness is already forgotten!]… terrorist   ventures.” How amazingly clever this is in all truth: to sacrifice the Life of a revolutionary for the sake of wreaking vengeance on the scoundrel Sipyagin, who is then replaced by the scoundrel Plehve—that is big work. But to prepare, for instance, the masses for an armed demonstration—that is petty work. This very point is explained in No. 8 of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya, which declares that “it is easy to write and speak” of armed demonstrations “as a matter of the vague and distant future,” “but up till now all this talk has been merely of a theoretical nature.” How well we know this Language of people who are free of the constraint of firm socialist convictions, of the burdensome experience of each and every kind of popular movement! They confuse immediately tangible and sensational results with practicalness. To them the demand to adhere steadfastly to the class standpoint and to maintain the mass nature of the movement is “vague” “theorising.” In their eyes definitiveness is slavish compliance with every turn of sentiment and … and, by reason of this compliance, inevitable helplessness at each turn. Demonstrations begin— and blood thirsty words, talk about the beginning of the end, flow from the lips of such people. The demonstrations halt— their hands drop helplessly, and before they have had time to wear out a pair of boots they are already shouting: “The people, alas, are still a long way off….” Some new outrage is perpetrated by the tsar’s henchmen—and they demand to be shown a “definite” measure that would serve as an exhaustive reply to that particular outrage, a measure that would bring about an immediate “transference of strength,” and they proudly promise this transference! These people do not understand that this very promise to “transfer” strength constitutes political adventurism, and that their adventurism stems from their lack of principle.

The Social-Democrats will always warn against adventurism and ruthlessly expose illusions which inevitably end in complete disappointment. We must bear in mind that a revolutionary party is worthy of its name only when it quides [sic.] in deed the movement of a revolutionary class. We must bear in mind that any popular movement assumes an infinite variety of forms, is constantly developing new forms and discarding the old, and effecting modifications or new   combinations of old and new forms. It is our duty to participate actively in this process of working out means and methods of struggle. When the students’ movement became sharper, we began to call on the workers to come to the aid of the students (Iskra, No. 2[See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 414-19.—Ed.]) without taking it upon our selves to forecast the forms of the demonstrations, without promising that they would result in an immediate transference of strength, in lighting up the mind, or a special elusiveness. When the demonstrations became consolidated, we began to call for their organisation and for the arming of the masses, and put forward the task of preparing a popular uprising. Without in the least denying violence and terrorism in principle, we demanded work for the preparation of such forms of violence as were calculated to bring about the direct participation of the masses and which guaranteed that participation. We do not close our eyes to the difficulties of this task, but will work at it steadfastly and persistently, undeterred by the objections that this is a matter of the “vague and distant future.” Yes, gentlemen, we stand for future and not only past forms of the movement. We give preference to long and arduous work on what promises a future rather than to an “easy” repetition of what has been condemned by the past. We shall always expose people who in word war against hackneyed dogmas and in practice hold exclusively to such moth-eaten and harmful commonplaces as the theory of the transference of strength, the difference between big work and petty work and, of course, the theory of single combat. “Just as in the days of yore the peoples’ battles were fought out by their leaders in single combat, so now the terrorists will win Russia’s freedom in single combat with the autocracy,” the April 3 leaflet concludes. The mere reprinting of such sentences provides their refutation.

Anyone who really carries on his revolutionary work in conjunction with the class struggle of the proletariat very well knows, sees and feels what vast numbers of immediate and direct demands of the proletariat (and of the sections of the people capable of supporting the latter) remain unsatisfied. He knows that in very many places, throughout vast areas, the working people are literally   straining to go into action, and that their ardour runs to waste because of the scarcity of literature and leadership, the lack of forces and means in the revolutionary organisations. And we find ourselves—we see that we find our selves—in the same old vicious circle that has so long hemmed in the Russian revolution like an omen of evil. On the one hand, the revolutionary ardour of the insufficiently enlightened and unorganised crowd runs to waste. On the other hand, shots fired by the “elusive individuals” who are losing faith in the possibility of marching in formation and working hand in hand with the masses also end in smoke.

But things can still be put to rights, comrades! Loss of faith in a real cause is the rare exception rather than the rule. The urge to commit terrorist acts is a passing mood. Then let the Social-Democrats close their ranks, and we shall fuse the militant organisation of revolutionaries and the mass heroism of the Russian proletariat into a single whole!

In the next article we shall deal with the agrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

II

The Socialist-Revolutionaries’ attitude to the peasant movement is of particular interest. It is precisely in the agrarian question that representatives of the old Russian socialism, their liberal-Narodnik descendants, and also adherents of opportunist criticism who are so numerous in Russia and so vociferously pass assurances that on this score Marxism has already been conclusively disproved by the “critics,” have always considered themselves especially strong. Our Socialist-Revolutionaries too are tearing Marxism to shreds, so to speak: “dogmatic prejudices… outlived dogmas long since refuted by life … the revolutionary intelligentsia has shut its eyes to the countryside, revolutionary work among the peasantry was forbidden by orthodoxy,” and much else in this vein. It is the current fashion to kick out at orthodoxy. But to what subspecies must one relegate those of the kickers who did not even manage to draw up an outline for an agrarian programme of their own before   the commencement of the peasant movement? When Iskra sketched its agrarian programme as early as in No. 3,[See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 420-28.—Ed.] Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii could only mutter: “Given such a presentation of the question, still another of our differences is fading away”—what happened here is that the editors of Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii had the mishap of utterly failing to understand Iskra’s presentation of the question (the “introduction of the class struggle into the country side”). Revolutsionnaya Rossiya now belatedly refers to the pamphlet entitled The Next Question, although it contains no programme whatever, but only panegyrics on such “celebrated” opportunists as Hertz.

And now these same people—who before the commencement of the movement were in agreement both with Iskra and with Hertz—come out, on the day following the peasant uprising, with a manifesto “from the peasant league [!] of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party,” a manifesto in which you will not find a single syllable really emanating from the peasantry, but only a literal repetition of what you have read hundreds of times in the writings of the Narodniks, the liberals, and the “critics.” … It is said that courage can move mountains. That is so, Messrs. the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but it is not to such courage that your garish advertisement testifies.

We have seen that the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ greatest “advantage” lies in their freedom from theory; their greatest skill consists in their ability to speak without saying anything. But in order to present a programme, one must nevertheless say something. It is necessary, for instance, to throw overboard the “dogma of the Russian Social-Democrats of the late eighties and early nineties to the effect that there is no revolutionary force save the urban proletariat.” What a handy little word “dogma” is! One need only slightly twist an opposing theory, cover up this twist with the bogy of “dogma”—and there you are!

Beginning with the Communist Manifesto, all modern socialism rests on the indisputable truth that the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class in capitalist society. The other classes may and do become revolutionary only in part and only under certain conditions. What, then, must one think of people who have “transformed” this truth into a dogma of the Russian Social-Democrats of a definite period and who try to convince the naive reader that this dogma was “based entirely on the belief that open political struggle lay far in the future”?

To counter Marx’s doctrine that there is only one really revolutionary class in modern society, the Socialist-Revolutionaries advance the trinity: “the intelligentsia, the proletariat, and the peasantry,” thereby revealing a hope less confusion of concepts. If one sets the intelligentsia against the proletariat and the peasantry it means that one considers the former a definite social stratum, a group of per sons occupying just as definite a social position as is occupied by the wage-workers and the peasants. But as such a stratum the Russian intelligentsia is precisely a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. With regard to this stratum, Mr. Struve is quite right in calling his paper the mouthpiece of the Russian intelligentsia. However, if one is referring to those intellectuals who have not yet taken any definite social stand, or have already been thrown off their normal stand by the facts of life, and are passing over to the side of the proletariat, then it is altogether absurd to contrapose this intelligentsia to the proletariat. Like any other class in modern society, the proletariat is not only advancing intellectuals from its own midst, but also accepts into its ranks supporters from the midst of all and sundry educated people. The campaign of the Socialist-Revolutionaries against the basic “dogma” of Marxism is merely additional proof that the entire strength of this party is represented by the handful of Russian intellectuals who have broken away from the old, but have not yet adhered to the new.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries’ views on the peasantry are even more muddled. To take just the posing of the question: “What social classes in general [!] always 1!! cling to the existing… Ithe autocratic only? or bourgeois in general?]… order, guard it and do not yield to revolutionisation?” As a matter of fact, this question can be answered only by another question: what elements of the intelligentsia in general always cling to the existing chaos of ideas, guard it and do not yield to a definite socialist world out look? But the Socialist-Revolutionaries want to give a serious answer to an insignificant question. To “these” classes they refer, first, the bourgeoisie, since its “interests have been satisfied.” This old prejudice that the interests of the Russian bourgeoisie have already been satisfied to such a degree that we neither have nor can have bourgeois democracy in our country (cf. Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii, No. 2, pp. 132-33) is now shared by the “economists” and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Again, won’t Mr. Struve teach them some common sense?

Secondly, the Socialist-Revolutionaries include among these classes the “petty-bourgeois strata” “whose interests are individualistic, undefined as class interests, and do not lend themselves to formulation in a reformative or revolutionary socio-political programme.” Whence this has come, the Lord alone knows. It is common knowledge that the petty bourgeoisie does not always and in general guard the existing order, but on the contrary often takes revolutionary action even against the bourgeoisie (specifically, when it joins the proletariat) and very often against absolutism, and that it almost always formulates programmes of social reform. Our author has simply come out with a “noisier” declaration against the petty bourgeoisie, in accordance with the “practical rule,” which Turgenev expressed through an “old fox” in one of his “Poems in Prose”: “Cry out most loudly against those vices you yourself feel guilty of.”⁵ And so, since the Socialist-Revolutionaries feel that the only social basis of their position between two stools can be perhaps provided only by certain petty-bourgeois sections of the intelligentsia, they therefore write about the petty bourgeoisie as if this term does not signify a social category, but is simply a polemical turn of speech. They likewise want to evade the unpleasant fact of their failure to understand that the peasantry of today belongs, as a whole, to the “petty-bourgeois strata.” Won’t you try to give us an answer on this score, Messrs. the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Won’t you tell us why it is that, while repeating snatches of the theory of Russian Marxism (for example, about the progressive significance of peasant outside employment and tramping), you turn a blind eye to the fact that this same Marxism has revealed the petty-bourgeois make-up of Russian peasant economy? Won’t you explain to us how it is possible in con temporary society for “proprietors or semi-proprietors” not to belong to the petty-bourgeois strata?

No, harbour no hopes! The Socialist-Revolutionaries will not reply; they will not say or explain anything bearing upon the matter, for they (again like the “economists”) have thoroughly learned the tactic of pleading ignorance when it comes to theory. Revolutsionnaya Rossiya looks meaningly towards Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsit—that is their job, they say (cf. No. 4, reply to Zarya), while Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii informs its readers of the exploits of the opportunist critics and keeps on threatening to make its criticism ever sharper. That is hardly enough, gentlemen!

The Socialist-Revolutionaries have kept themselves pure of the baneful influence of modern socialist doctrines. They have fully preserved the good old methods of vulgar socialism. We are confronted by a new historical fact, a new movement among a certain section of the people. They do not examine the condition of this section or set themselves the aim of explaining its movement by the nature of that section and its relation to the developing economic structure of society as a whole. To them, all this is an empty dogma, outlived orthodoxy. They do things more simply: what is it that the representatives of the rising section themselves are speaking about? Land, additional allotments, redistribution of the land. There it is in a nutshell. You have a “semi-socialist programme,” “a thoroughly correct principle,” “a bright idea,” “an ideal which already lives in the peasant’s mind in embryo form,” etc. All that is necessary is to “brush up and elaborate this ideal,” bring out the “pure idea of socialism.” You find this hard to believe, reader? It seems incredible to you that this Narodnik junk should again be dragged into the light of day by people who so glibly repeat whatever the latest book may tell them? And yet this is a fact, and all the words we have quoted are in the declaration “from the peasant league” published in No. 8 of Revolutstonnaya Rossiya.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries accuse Iskra of having prematurely tolled the knell of the peasant movement by describing it as the last peasant revolt. The peasantry,   they inform us, can participate in the socialist movement of the proletariat as well. This accusation testifies to the confusion of thought among the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They have not even grasped that the democratic movement against the remnants of serf-ownership is one thing, and the socialist movement against the bourgeoisie is quite another. Since they have failed to understand the peasant movement itself, they have likewise been unable to under stand that the words in Iskra, which frightened them so, refer only to the former movement. Not only has Iskra stated in its programme that the small producers (including the peasants), who are being ruined, can and should participate in the socialist movement of the proletariat, but it has also defined the exact conditions for this participation. The peasant movement of today, however, is not at all a socialist movement directed against the bourgeoisie and capitalism. On the contrary, it unites the bourgeois and the proletarian elements in the peasantry, which are really one in the struggle against the remnants of the serf-owning system. The peasant movement of today is leading—and will lead—to the establishment, not of a socialist or a semi-socialist way of life in the countryside, but of a bourgeois way of life, and will clear away the feudal debris cluttering up the bourgeois foundations that have already arisen in our countryside.

But all this is a sealed book to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They even assure Iskra in all seriousness that to clear the way for the development of capitalism is an empty dogma, since the “reforms” (of the sixties) “did clear 1!] full [!! I space for the development of capitalism.” That is what can be written by a glib person who lets a facile pen run away with him and who imagines that the “peasant league” can get away with anything: the peasant won’t see through it! But kindly reflect for a moment, my dear author: have you never heard that remnants of the serf-owning system retard the development of capitalism? Don’t you think that this is even all but tautological? And haven’t you read somewhere about the remnants of serf-ownership in the present-day Russian countryside?

Iskra says that the impending revolution will be a bourgeois revolution. The Socialist-Revolutionaries object:   it will be “primarily a political revolution and to a certain extent a democratic revolution.” Won’t the authors of this pretty objection try to explain this to us— does history know of any bourgeois revolution, or is such a bourgeois revolution conceivable, that is not “to a certain extent a democratic revolution”? Why, even the programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries themselves (equalitarian tenure of land that has become social property) does not go beyond the limits of a bourgeois programme, since the preservation of commodity production and toleration of private farming, even if it is conducted on common land, in no way eliminates capitalist relationships in agriculture.

The greater the levity with which the Socialist-Revolutionaries approach the most elementary truths of modern socialism, the more easily do they invent “most elementary deductions,” even taking pride in the fact that their “programme reduces itself” to such. Let us then examine all three of their deductions, which most probably will long remain a monument to the keen wit and profound socialist convictions of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Deduction No. 1: “A large portion of the territory of Russia now already belongs to the state—what we need is that all the territory should belong to the people.” Our teeth are “now already” on edge from the touching references to state ownership of land in Russia contained in the writings of the police Narodniks (à la Sazonov, etc.) and the various Katheder-reformers.⁶ “What we need” is that people who style themselves socialists and even revolutionaries should trail in the rear of these gentlemen. “What we need” is that socialists should lay stress on the alleged omnipotence of the “state” (forgetting even that a large share of the state land is concentrated in the uninhabited marginal regions of the country), and not on the class antagonism between the semi-serf peasantry and the privileged handful of big landowners, who own most of the best cultivated land and with whom the “state” has always been on the best of terms. Our Socialist-Revolutionaries, who imagine that they are deducing a pure idea of socialism, are in actual fact sullying this idea by their uncritical attitude towards the old Narodism.

Deduction No. 2: “The land is now already passing from capital to labour—what we need is that this process be completed by the state.” The deeper you go into the forest, the thicker the trees.[A Russian saying.—Ed.] Let us take another step towards police Narodism; let us call on the (class!) “state” to extend peasant landownership in general. This is remarkably socialistic and amazingly revolutionary. But what can one expect of people who call the purchase and lease of land by the peasants a transfer “from capital to labour” and not transfer of land from the feudal-minded landlords to the rural bourgeoisie. Let us remind these people at least of the statistics on the actual distribution of the land that is “passing to labour”: between six- and nine-tenths of all peas ant-purchased land, and from five- to eight-tenths of all leased land are concentrated in the hands of one-filth of the peasant households, i.e., in the hands of a small minority of well-to-do peasants. From this one can judge whether there is much truth in the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ words when they assert “we do not at all count” on the well-to-do peasants but only on the “labouring sections exclusively.”

Deduction No. 3: “The peasant already has land, and in most cases on the basis of equalitarian land distribution—what we need is that this labour tenure should be carried through to the end … and culminate in collective agricultural production through the development of co-operatives of every kind.” Scratch a Socialist-Revolutionary and you find Mr. V. V.!⁷ When it came to action, all the old prejudices of Narodism, which had safely preserved themselves behind shifty phrasing, crept to the surface at once. State ownership of the land—the completion by the state of the transference of the land to the peasantry—the village commune—co-operatives—collectivism— in this magnificent scheme of Messrs. Sazonov, Yuzov, N.—on,⁸ the Socialist Revolutionaries, Hofstetter, Totomiants, and so on, and so forth—in this scheme a mere trifle is lacking. It takes account neither of developing capitalism, nor of the class struggle. But then how could this trifle enter the minds of people whose entire ideological luggage consists of Narodnik rags and smart patches of fashionable criticism? Did not Mr. Bulgakov himself say that there is no place for the class struggle in the countryside? Will the replacement of the class struggle by “co-operatives of every kind” fail to satisfy both the liberals and the “critics,” and in general all those to whom socialism is no more than a traditional label? And is it not possible to try to soothe naive people with the assurance: “Of course, any idealisation of the village commune is alien to us,” although right next to this assurance you read some colossal bombast about the “colossal organisation of the mir peasants,” then bombast that “in certain respects no other class in Russia is so impelled towards a purely III political struggle as the peasantry,” that peasant self-determination (!) is far broader in scope and in competence than that of the Zemstvo, that this combination of “broad” … (up to the very boundary of the village?) … “independent activity” with an absence of the “most elementary civic rights” “seems to have been deliberately designed for the purpose of … rousing and exercising H] political instincts and habits of social struggle.” If you don’t like all this, you don’t have to listen, but….

“One has to be blind not to see how much easier it is to pass to the idea of socialising the land from the traditions of communal land tenure.” Is it not the other way round, gentlemen? Are not those people hopelessly deaf and blind who to this very day do not know that it is precisely the medieval seclusion of the semi-serf commune, which splits the peasantry into tiny unions and binds the rural proletariat hand and foot, that maintains the traditions of stagnation, oppression, and barbarism? Are you not defeating your own purpose by recognising the usefulness of outside employment, which has already destroyed by three-quarters the much-vaunted traditions of equalitarian land tenure in the commune, and reduced these traditions to meddling by the police?

The minimum programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, based as it is on the theory we have just analysed, is a real curiosity. This “programme” includes two items: 1) “socialisation of the land, i.e., its conversion into the property of the whole of society, to be used by the working people”; 2) “the development among the peasantry of all possible types of public associations and economic co-operatives … [for a “purely” political struggle?]… for the gradual emancipation of the peasantry from the sway of money capital … [and subjugation to industrial?] … and for the preparation of collective agricultural production of the future.” Just as the sun is reflected in a drop of water, so is the entire spirit of the present-day “Social-Revolutionarism” reflected in these two items. In theory, revolutionary phrase mongering instead of a considered and integral system of views; in practice—helpless snatching at this or that modish petty expedient instead of participation in the class struggle—that is all they have to show. We must admit that it has required rare civic courage to place socialisation of the land alongside of co-operation in a minimum programme. Their minimum programme: Babeuf, on the one hand, and Mr. Levitsky, on the other.⁹ This is inimitable.

If it were possible to take this programme seriously, we should have to say that, in deceiving themselves with grandiloquent words, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are also deceiving the peasants. It is deception to assert that “co-operatives of every kind” play a revolutionary role in present-day society and prepare the way for collectivism rather than strengthen the rural bourgeoisie. It is deception to assert that socialisation of the land can be placed before the “peasantry” as a “minimum,” as something just as close at hand as the establishment of co-operatives. Any socialist could explain to our Socialist-Revolutionaries that today the abolition of private ownership of land can only be the immediate prelude to its abolition in general; that the mere transfer of the land “to be used by the working people” would still not satisfy the proletariat, since millions and tens of millions of ruined peasants are no longer able to work the land, even if they had it. And to supply these ruined millions with implements, cattle, etc., would amount to the socialisation of all the means of production and would require a socialist revolution of the proletariat and not a peasant movement against the remnants of the serf owning system. The Socialist-Revolutionaries are confusing socialisation of the land with bourgeois nationalisation of the land. Speaking in the abstract, the latter is conceivable on the basis of capitalism too, without abolishing wage labour. But the very example of these same Socialist-Revolutionaries   is vivid confirmation of the truth that to advance the demand for nationalisation of the land in a police state is tantamount to obscuring the only revolutionary principle, that of the class struggle, and bringing grist to the mill of every kind of bureaucracy.

Not only that. The Socialist-Revolutionaries descend to outright reaction when they rise up against the demand of our draft programme for the “annulment of all laws restricting the peasant in the free disposal of his land.” For the sake of the Narodnik prejudice about the “commune principle” and the “equalitarian principle” they deny to the peasant such a “most elementary civic right” as the right freely to dispose of his land; they complacently shut their eyes to the fact that the village commune of today is hemmed in by its social-estate reality; they become champions of the police interdictions established and supported by the “state” … of the rural superintendents! We believe that not only Mr. Levitsky but Mr. Pobedonostsev¹⁰ too will not be very much alarmed over the demand for socialisation of the land for the purpose of establishing equalitarian land tenure, once this demand is put forth as a minimum demand alongside of which such things figure as co-operatives and the defence of the police system of keeping the muzhik tied down to the official allotment which supports him.

Let the agrarian programme of the Socialist-Revolutionaries serve as a lesson and a warning to all socialists, a glaring example of what results from an absence of ideology and principles, which some unthinking people call freedom from dogma. When it came to action, the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not reveal even a single of the three conditions essential for the elaboration of a consistent socialist programme: a clear idea of the ultimate aim; a correct understanding of the path leading to that aim; an accurate conception of the true state of affairs at the given moment or of the immediate tasks of that moment. They simply obscured the ultimate aim of socialism by con fusing socialisation of the land with bourgeois nationalisation and by confusing the primitive peasant idea about small-scale equalitarian land tenure with the doctrine of modern socialism on the conversion of all means of production   into public property and the organisation of socialist production. Their conception of the path leading to socialism is peerlessly characterised by their substitution of the development of co-operatives for the class struggle. In their estimation of the present stage in the agrarian evolution of Russia, they have forgotten a trifle: the remnants of serf-ownership, which weigh so heavily on our country side. The famous trinity which reflects their theoretical views—the intelligentsia, the proletariat, and the peasantry—has its complement in the no less famous three-point “programme”—socialisation of the land, co-operatives, and attachment to the allotment.

Compare this with Iskra’s programme, which indicates to the entire militant proletariat one ultimate aim, with out reducing it to a “minimum,” without debasing it so as to adapt it to the ideas of certain backward sections of the proletariat or of the small producers. The road leading to this aim is the same in town and countryside—the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. But besides this class struggle, another struggle is going on in our countryside: the struggle of the entire peasantry against the remnants of serf-ownership. And in this struggle the party of the proletariat promises its support to the entire peasantry and strives to provide its revolutionary ardour with a real objective, and guide its uprising against its real enemy, considering it dishonest and unworthy to treat the muzhik as though he were under tutelage or to conceal from him the fact that at present and immediately he can achieve only the complete eradication of all traces and remnants of the serf-owning system, and only clear the way for the broader and more difficult struggle of the entire proletariat against the whole of bourgeois society.

1. “At least we make an infernal noise.” Words spoken by Repetilov, a character in Griboyedov’s well-known comedy, Wit Works Woe, Act IV, Scene 4. ︎
2. V.I. Lenin’s intention “to return in a magazine article, or in a pamphlet” to a more detailed exposition of the arguments against the programmatic views and tactics of the Socialist-Revolutionaries remained unfulfilled. The following is the preliminary material for the intended pamphlet: “Extract from an Article Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (December 1902) (see pp. 287-88 of this volume), “Outline of a Pamphlet Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (spring 1903) (see Proletarskaya Revolutsia, 1939, No. 1, pp. 22-28), and “Outline of an Article Against the Socialist-Revolutionaries” (first half of July 1903) (see pp. 464-65 of this volume). ︎
3. “Let the writers do the writing and the readers do the reading”—a sentence from M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Miscellaneous Letters, Letter One. ︎
4. ︎
5. The reference is to one of Turgenev’s Poems in Prose—“A Rule of Life” (see I. S. Turgenev, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. 8, 1956, p. 464). ︎
6. Katheder-reformers, Katheder-Socialists—representatives of a trend in bourgeois political economy, which arose in Germany in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century. Under the guise of socialism the Katheder-Socialists advocated from the university chairs (Katheder in German) bourgeois-liberal reformism. Katheder-Socialism was motivated by the exploiting classes’ fear of the spread of Marxism and the growth of the working-class movement, and also by the effor True, Revolzststonnaya Rossiya does some juggling with this point also. On the one hand—“coincides in full,” on the other—a hint about “exaggerations.” On the one hand, Revolntsionnaya Rossiya declares that this leaflet comes from only “one group” of Socialist-Revolutionaries. On the other hand, it is a fact that the leaflet bears the imprint: “Published by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.” Moreover, it carries the motto of. this same Revolutsionnaya Rosaiga (“By struggle you will achieve your rights”). We appreciate that Revolutsionnaya Rossiya finds it disagreeable to touch on this ticklish point, but we believe that it is simply unseemly to play at hide-and-seek in such cases. The existence of “economism” was just as disagreeable to revolutionary Social-Democracy, but the latter exposed it openly, without ever making the slightest attempt to mislead anyone. —Lenints of bourgeois ideologists to find fresh means of keeping the working people in subjugation.
   Representatives of Katheder-Socialism (Adolf Wagner, Gustav Schmoller, Lorenz Brentano, Werner Sombart, and others) asserted that the bourgeois state stands above classes and is capable of reconciling the hostile classes and of gradually introducing “socialism,” without affecting the interests of the capitalists and, as far as possible, with due account of the working people’s demands. They proposed giving police regulation of wage-labour the force of law and reviving the medieval guilds. Marx, Engels and Lenin exposed the reactionary nature of Ketheder-Socialism, which in Russia was spread by the “legal Marxists.” ︎
7. V.V. (pseudonym of V. P. Vorontsov)—one of the ideologists of liberal Narodism in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
8. N.—on or Nikolai—on (pseudonym of N. F. Danielson)—one of the ideologists of liberal Narodism in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
9. Babeuf (1760-1797)—revolutionary Communist and leader of the French bourgeois revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. He organised a secret society, which in 1796 tried to over throw the power of the exploiting classes.
   Levitsky—liberal Narodnik, founder of agricultural artels in Kherson Gubernia in the nineties of the nineteenth century. ︎
10. Pobedonostsev—reactionary tsarist statesman, Procurator-General of the Synod, actually head of the government and chief inspirer of the savage feudal reaction under Alexander III. He continued to play a prominent part under Nicholas II. ︎

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Due to his political activity in opposition to the Hashemite royal house within the Jordanian Communist Party, al-Ashhab was arrested. In October 1954 he was forced to go underground. In April 1957, against the backdrop of mass demonstrations protesting the dismissal of Suleiman Alanbulsi’s government, al-Ashhab was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but managed to escape his pursuers. In August 1966, the security services captured him in Amman and threw him into prison. Upon his release from prison in June 1967, al-Ashhab returned to Old Jerusalem.

From the Jordanian Prison … to the Israeli Prison

Due to his political activity against the Israeli occupation, he was placed under administrative arrest time after time. In total he spent 38 months in Israeli prison. In August 1971, following an international campaign for his release, he was released and deported abroad. He represented his Communist Party in the international arena and was a member of the Central Council of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in May 1993, al-Ashhab returned to Jerusalem. As part of his public activity, he developed close ties with the Israeli Communist Party (MAKI), Hadash, as well as circles and individuals in the Peace Camp in Israel. His mastery of the Hebrew language, which he first acquired in prison, helped him.

As a regular columnist in the daily Alayam, which is published in Ramallah, al-Ashhab published an article in June 2001 in which he denounced the suicide attacks aimed at civilians in Israeli territory. In his opinion, the attacks united Israeli society behind Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and inflicted heavy damage on the just Palestinian struggle in international public opinion. In a book he published in the spring of 2003 under the title, Similar and Different Aspects of the Two Intifadas, al-Ashhab emphasized that the contribution of the 1987 Stone Intifada to the Palestinian people was immeasurably greater than that of the 2000 Intifada to break the vicious cycle of violence

In 2006 in Ramallah he published the book, Hamas: From Refusal to Rule. In the first part of the book, Al-Ashhab describes the connection of the founders of Hamas to the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt. Historian Dr. Yosef Algazi, a former member of the editorial staff of Zo Deghare, published comprehensive reviews of al-Ashhab’s book on the Left Bank website. Below are excerpts from the reviews.

“From the beginning of their journey in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood stated that Islam is essentially an all-encompassing law for the orders of this world and the next. They opposed the principle of separation of religion from the state and secularism. According to them, the source of the struggle against colonialism and imperialism is the cross. They wanted to monopolize Islam, take control of it and present their opponents as the enemies of Islam. This is how they justified the assassination operations they carried out against their opponents. They did not hide that their goal was to put an end to the party regime. The founder of their organization, Hassan Albana, stated that Islam is ‘a Koran and a sword’.”

Referring to the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948, al-Ashhab revealed that, in addition to sending volunteers to the war in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt engaged in underground-terrorist activity. In their opinion, the essence of the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian struggle is religious—Islam against Judaism and not necessarily a struggle against imperialism and Zionism. Their men carried out acts of terror against Jewish targets in Egypt, mainly in Cairo, where they killed Jews and destroyed businesses.

The book also shows that in the first years of the Israeli occupation following the 1967 Six-Day War, the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood was not felt in the occupied territories. The picture changed in the 1970s. The results of the local authority elections in the occupied territories in 1976 brought nationalist and left-wing elements to the forefront of the Palestinian political arena. At the same time, the celebration of the first Earth Day in Israel that year indicated the strengthening of the influence of the communists. In order to curb these left-wing elements, political Islam raised its head in the occupied territories and in Israel. This awakening benefited from massive and visible support, political and material, on the part of Saudi Arabia, as well as encouragement, sometimes not hidden, on the part of the Israeli establishment. In those days, the Islamic movement arose in Israel. In 1979, the Israeli occupation authorities granted Sheikh Ahmed Yassin a license to establish the “Al-Mujama Al-Islami” association, from which the Hamas movement grew.

In the 1980s, the followers of Sheikh Yassin set fire to the offices and the library of the Red Crescent Society in Gaza, headed by Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi, a leftist. Fatah officials collaborated with the attackers, while the occupation authorities turned a blind eye to the arson. It should be noted that in 2006 armed members of Hamas destroyed the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Nablus, threw a lecturer from the third floor of Al-Najah College, and in Hebron attacked left-wing students at the College of Technology.

The Israeli authorities, the PLO leadership in Tunis as well as the Muslim Brotherhood in the territories treated the first intifada, which broke out at the end of 1987, as a passing phenomenon. When it became clear to the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood that they were wrong, they invested great efforts to control it. The Muslim Brotherhood acted against the united national leadership of the first intifada in the territories. It consisted of operators of Fatah, the Communist Party, the Popular Front and the Democratic Front.

The establishment of the ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’

In January 1988, the Muslim Brotherhood under the leadership of Sheikh Yassin established the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Even under their new name, Yassin and his men persisted in the policy of non-cooperation with the organizations that led the intifada. At every opportunity they differed from them: they announced their own strike days and raised slogans along the lines of “Islam is the solution”, “Our land is Islamic and this is its essence”; “Jews left our country”, “According to the Koran, the extinction of Israel is an inevitable fact.” With the funds transferred to them by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, they established an extensive network of welfare institutions and services that strengthened their influence.

In his book, al-Ashhab took issue with many sections of the Hamas charter. He stated that the Hamas slogan regarding the establishment of the state of Palestine “from the river to the sea” served the official Israeli policy. According to him, Palestinian extremism was the main ally of the Israeli governments who declared that their actions against the Palestinian people were in the nature of “self-defense”. At the same time, feelings of despair and frustration pushed Palestinians to extreme positions.

In its charter, Hamas rules out any political and diplomatic activity to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of UN resolutions. Article 13 of the charter rules out peace solutions, international initiatives and conferences that, in its opinion, “are nothing more than another means for the control of the infidels over the land of the Muslims.” “Any giving up of a piece of land from Palestine is a renunciation of part of the religion,” states the convention.

After quoting a verse attributed to the Prophet Muhammad calling for the killing of Jews, Al-Ashhab came out in a buffer against this notion and mentioned the contribution of Jews who oppose the occupation to the Palestinian struggle. He named, among others, MK Meir Vilner, the communist who was stabbed by an assassin due to his opposition to the June 1967 war; the participants in the protests against the settlements, land expropriation and the wall, and those who protect Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest season. Al-Ashhab’s conclusion:

“Common sense says, that cutting off our people from its allies, regardless of which religion or nationality they belong to, serves the Israeli enemy and its support—American imperialism.”

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, Hamas carried out a series of terrorist attacks inside Israel. At the end of 2000, Hamas increased its suicide attacks, which were mainly aimed at civilians in the Green Line. Al-Ashhab lamented that later, the Fatah organization that controlled the Palestinian Authority did not stand up against these actions, but instead followed:

“… a wrong and dangerous course of action that caused heavy damage to the Palestinian cause in the international arena and made it easier for Israel to increase the suppression of legitimate opposition to the occupation. From then on, the label of terrorism was affixed for any act of resistance to the occupation.”

The Israeli Policy of Strengthening Hamas

The late communist leader believed that Hamas’s refusal to recognize the validity of UN resolutions and the agreements signed by the PLO and Israel caused the Palestinian people to starve. The refusal allows the Israeli government to evade conducting substantive negotiations with the Palestinian side and force unilateral moves. Al-Ashhab believed that the Israeli government is not interested in overthrowing the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and prefers that it remain weak and isolated. Israel worked to exacerbate the intra-Palestinian conflict so that it could degenerate into a civil war. Hamas, Al-Ashhab pointed out, aims to hold on to power at any cost. He behaves like the political Islam that dominates Iran and like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Al-Ashhab stated that some of the changes in the political style of Hamas since it came to power in the Gaza Strip were aimed at calming the vigilance of its opponents, so that it could strengthen its position and fortify its rule. Islamic fundamentalism states that the source of the legitimacy of any government is the Koran and the Sunnah (Muslim law) and not the voter.

Al-Ashhab noted:

“If Article 17 of the Hamas Charter miraculously elevates the role of the Palestinian woman as the producer of the men, Article 18 assigns her a significant role in taking care of the home and raising the children on the knees of the moral values ​​and concepts drawn from Islam,”

He also emphasized that:

“the convention completely ignores the civil and political rights of women.”

Al-Ashhab concluded:

“Belief in religion is one thing, while political Islam is another. In the concrete conditions in which the Palestinians live, religion should merge with Palestinian nationalism, one of whose aspirations is to be freed from the occupation. Whereas political Islam is a project to seize power by a social group that uses religion as a disguise.”

Referring to the right-wing elements in Israel, Al-Ashhab warned:

“These elements are betting on the continuation of a vicious circle of violence, provocations, actions and acts of revenge. Israeli measures such as the occupation of refugee camps and targeted assassinations will provide grounds for Palestinian extremist elements for their own acts of revenge.”

However, Al-Ashhab noted in his book, that he senses the changes taking place in Israel; for example, a majority within it supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, and this includes some Likud voters.

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Capital – through multinational companies and their staunch supporters Britain, the US and other Western countries – tried to impose their hegemony through so-called free global trade, advocated through the World Trade Organization and described rightly as LPG (Liberation, Privatization and Globalization).

This process was initiated during the presidency of Republican Ronald Regan. It is interesting to note that this policy continued during the regime of Democratic presidents like Bill Clinton and Barak Obama. The reason is clear, as both wanted to continue with US dominance.

However, subsequent developments like the rise of China, Russia and other Asian countries like India, Japan and South Korea led to rethinking in the US. Fardeen Zakaria has rightly described the process as “the rise of the rest.” This challenged the dominant position of US. Hence, under Republican president Donald Trump, the trend of policy reversal is clear as he talks of imposing unilateral tariff or taxes on imports from other countries.

When Trump became president for the first time in 2016, he targeted Russia and China and helped create tensions between Europe and Russia through NATO. Europe was dependent on cheap Russian oil and gas, but this conflict forced Europe to abandon the Russian oil and gas and turn to US for the same. Thus, the US is now the biggest supplier of oil and gas to Europe. The conflict also led to the Ukraine-Russia war.

This new situation brought Russia, China and Iran together. Similarly, Russian attempts to use BRICS countries to challenge the dollar currency is also seen as a challenge by the US; hence Trump is threatening BRICS countries and even those that are interested in joining the BRICS.

German and French interests prevailed in the 20th century through the development of the common European market, the single currency of the Euro, and bringing together the European countries through the formation of the European Parliament. This development is perceived as a challenge to US hegemony and hence it is Trump’s strategy to compel them to divert their funds by increasing their defence spending through NATO.

By advocating a ceasefire between Russian and Ukraine, Trump is trying to create a wedge between China and Russia. For a long time, Russians have considered themselves Europeans and thought a weak Europe could be dominated by them, but pulling Russia away from China seems to be the new strategy of Trump in his second term. The military industrial complex and its interest are looked after by Trump, using US military power on one hand and US economic power or market strength and technological dominance on the other.

Meanwhile China is also preparing by developing AI technology (through DeepSeek) and through the Belt and Road Initiative. It is deliberately avoiding an arms race with the US, as this led to grave consequences for the USSR.

Return of the Nation State

After the Second World War most of the countries in the “Third World” became independent and colonialism was ended. During that period the US dominated the world and defeated existing socialism led by the USSR – it is no wonder that Trump in his second term is trying to repeat the same experience. But the world has changed, so the tactics of “democratic socialism” and projecting the West as the defender of democracy is no longer going to work. Thus, compromising democracy and democratic values is becoming common in the process of “Return of the State.”

The emergence of nationalism all over the world in 20th century, when people were fighting their colonial masters, resulted in anti-imperialist and independent countries. This strengthened the non-alignment movement. People’s interests were primary in this process; however, in the 21st century it is mostly the fascist or rightist, conservative forces that are leading the return of the nation state. Hence, people’s interests are pushed back, leading to increasing unemployment, a widening gap between classes, and inflation.

Because of the rivalry between European countries during 1930-40, the world faced the Second World War and five million civilians lost their lives. The return of the nation state and competition may again lead to a war, or multiple wars, and a death blow to democracy and its values unless people unite to defeat fascist forces.

New Age (Communist Party of India)

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US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in a speech on April 17, 2024, insists Americans should be grateful for the billions of dollars (60 billion, the latest “giveaway”) in funding for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel because the money, according to Mr. Austin, goes into the pockets of US manufacturers for increased weapon production which [supposedly] creates new jobs.

But does it?

First, jobs in the weapons industry decreased from 3.2 million in 1980 to 1 million today, during the same time that the sector has received near record governmental funding. Where did the money go if it did not create jobs? One significant outlay was to hire lobbyists. “Weapons makers have spent $2.5 billion on lobbying over the past two decades, employing, on average, over 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years, more than one for every member of Congress!” Only 700 jobs were created from that $2.5 billion.

Another common use of this funding is to buy back company stocks to inflate their stock price and to hand out bonuses to management and shareholders. When the government awards a contract to a manufacturer, that money is funded up front, even before a viable production plan is approved. Even though long start-up times are common in production plans and implementation, this money is immediately available to the manufacturer. The workers receive nothing.

Workers in the weapons industry are subject to wage theft and other fraudulent practices, which is unparalleled in other industries. Government contractors are required by law to follow the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) and the Service Contracts Act (SCA).

The Raytheon Company is an example of the rampant corruption in the weapons industry.

They will pay over $950 million to resolve the Justice Department‘s investigations into: (i) a major government fraud scheme involving defective pricing on certain government contracts. (ii) violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and its implementing regulations, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

In late 2020 the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to agree with the Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC) to produce a report reviewing:

• The integrity of the defense industrial base
• Contractor behavior that violates the laws, including fraud and other negligence or misrepresentation
• The successful or unsuccessful use of remedies, such as suspension and debarment.
  
  

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report for fiscal years 2014 through 2019 stating that the Department of Labor (DOL) completed 5,261 investigations among the Department of Defense contractors. Sixty-eight percent of those investigations found:

• $224 million in wage theft.
• $73 billion in other fraudulent activities.

Almost 14 billion dollars were stolen each year.

It was noted in the 2020 GAO report that the Department of Defense continues to award contracts to companies cited for willful or repeated fair labor standards violations. The Report cited only 60 debarments, (1.68% of violating contractors) resulting from SCA violations.

The enforcement of statutory debarment under the Service Contract Act (SCA) is fundamentally broken because so few firms are debarred.

The lack of credibility and integrity from the defense industrial complex can only be rectified by oversight governmental regarding corporations‘ refusal to:

• conduct the transparent accounting
• eliminate abuses in their lobbying activities
• stop exploiting the US Government‘s failure to monitor the revolving door between non-elected government officials and the private defense contractor sector.

Former defense Secretaries of Defense from the Trump and Biden administrations include:

• James Mattis (board member at General Dynamics)
• Patrick Shanahan (executive at Boeing)
• Mark Esper (head of government relations at Raytheon) and
• Lloyd Austin (board member of Raytheon Technologies)

In summary, “[The] …militarized sectors of the economy enjoy perpetual increases in funding while human needs go unmet. Reducing the military budget helps increase funding for other forms of security such as healthcare, education, clean energy, and infrastructure – while also increasing employment nationwide.”

The Hidden Costs of Shoring up the Weapons Manufacturers‘ International Assets

The costly infrastructure of military bases around the world props up the industrial-military complex of the US war economy. The US military provides bases overseas to protect US corporations‘ assets, including appropriated local resources in addition to backing foreign governments (regime change) beneficial to US policies. It is impossible to determine the actual cost to American workers, as the Department of Defense has failed to pass the last six financial audits. This alone is government maleficence and is a crime against the American people and our soldiers, who, by their presence in foreign lands are forced to participate in regime change and in protecting US corporate assets.

While over 750 military bases in 80 foreign countries are helping weapons manufacturers and subsidiary corporations reap in profits, the US workers bear the full cost of these installations through taxes and loss of jobs. Since 2021, due to off shoring jobs, consolidation, and automation, 1.9 million fewer workers (a 64% drop) work in the US Defense Industrial Complex.

The US has stricter laws regarding environmental contamination than most of the countries where US bases are located, and have taken advantage of this situation until recently, and are now dealing with foreign government complaints about environmental damages. However, even our American bases have begun issuing complaints to the American Air Force Engineering Center who oversee environmental issues and their resolutions, such as severe water contamination.

Maintaining bases is only the tip of the iceberg. The major impact is the US Government’s foreign policy of “Forever Wars.” Until that policy is defeated, the forward momentum of more wars will continue.

The Department of Defense (DOD) issues publications from the various outlining armed future forces plans and schedules for future military engagements; the most horrific plan being the invasion of Taiwan in 2027, (on the assumption that China will begin aggressive moves Taiwan).

“This Navigation Plan drives toward two strategic ends: readiness for the possibility of war with the People‘s Republic of China by 2027 and enhancing the Navy‘s long-term advantage. We will work towards these ends through two mutually reinforcing ways: implementing Project 33 and expanding the Navy‘s contribution to the Joint war-fighting ecosystem.”

“Project 33 is how we will get more ready players on the field by 2027. Project 33 sets targets for pushing hard to make strategically meaningful gains in the fastest possible time with the resources we influence. Project 33 targets are:

• Deliver a quality of service commensurate with the sacrifices of our Sailors
• Train for combat as we plan to fight, in the real world and virtually (i.e., hackers, ‗NETOPS‘, ‗INFOSEC‘, ‗OPSEC‘, etc.)

The biggest threat to world peace is the NATO alliance, which the US controls and in which the US Congress and Presidency are complicit.

Congress abdicated:

• Their powers to declare war;
• Their powers to determine the monetary means for conducting and supporting wars;

Congress increased the powers of the Executive Branch by:

• Creating the Executive Emergency Power Acts; (which includes assets seizures, OPAC);
• Creating the ―extra-legal‖ exercise of Presidential Authority

US government foreign policy responsibilities are now in the hands of the National Security Complex of weapons manufacturers, energy monopolies, arms cartels, CIA, NSA, financiers, universities, and other US inter-agency committees, as well as US elected officials who all utilize NATO to conduct US foreign policy. This involves the exploitation of other countries‘ workers and resources, as well as creating a burden on all American citizens through inflation, the lack of jobs and housing, and deprivation of basic needs such as health care and food.

The Invasive Presence of Weapons Manufacturers in One State

Every state is beholden to Department of Defense (DOD) funding. Economies can rise or fall based on the extent to which a state has allowed their financial well-being to hinge on the vagaries of the DOD.

Arkansas, for example, is in 43rd place regarding DOD funding. The state hosts an arsenal of the United States Army:

“Pine Bluff Arsenal is one of nine Army installations in the United States that stores chemical weapons. The arsenal supplies specialized production, storage, maintenance and distribution of readiness products, and delivers technical services to the Armed Forces and Homeland Security. It also designs, manufactures and refurbishes smoke, riot control, and incendiary munitions, as well as chemical/biological defense operations items. It serves as a technology center for illuminating and infrared munitions and is also the only place in the Northern Hemisphere where white phosphorous munitions orders are filled.”

In Camden, Arkansas, a phosphorous weapons manufacturing and storage facility exploded in 2024, killing one person on the night shift and destroying a quarter of the facility.

Arkansas boasts that it is considered the third most gun-friendly state in the country. The top munitions manufacturers make their home here. Fiocchi, a global leader in defensive, target, and hunting ammunition, has a new ammunition primer manufacturing facility, expanding its operations presence in Little Rock. “Aside from our strong ties with the state and local governments, Arkansas has a highly experienced and energetic labor force to call upon.”

Companies that also call Arkansas home include Sig Sauer, Remington, Daisy, Walther, Nighthawk Custom, Thermold Magazines, Umarex, and Wilson Combat. “As a pro-second amendment state, Arkansas welcomes Firearms & Ammunition companies looking to start-up, expand, or relocate to the state.”

The U.S. Army is on a path to triple its monthly production of 155mm shells following the passage of supplemental the by Ukraine Congress, (2024) and Arkansas munitions manufacturing companies have received large governmental contracts. “With the supplemental that just thankfully passed last night, we‘ll be at 100,000 rounds by next summer (2025),” Gen. James Mingus said at an event hosted by think-tank CSIS. That‘s more than three times the 30,000 shells that the service‘s factories are expected to turn out this month, Mingus said, and will represent a six-fold increase since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

What is not stated is this program has taken over two years to develop; the manufacturers received funds to build their production capacity, unlike Russia which had ‗standby‘ factories ready to produce additional munitions.

Arkansas has three large bases, two air force bases and an army base. The Little Rock Air Force Base and The Ebbing Air National Guard Base is home to F16 and F35 Pilot Training Programs. New F-35A Lightning II fighter jets fresh off the manufacturing line will soon be based in Arkansas—but they are not for the U.S. Air Force; they are being sold to key NATO ally, Poland. In 2025, 900 Polish pilots will be the first international group to receive pilot training on the new F-35s in Arkansas.

“The reason most of our allies in Europe are getting on board here is the deterrence factor. If there’s 500 or 600 of these in Europe, that’s a huge deterrent to some of our arch enemies that live in that area … and in the Pacific to tell you the truth.”

In August 2021, shortly after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan following the United States military’s withdrawal, photographs and videos started circulating online that showed Taliban forces holding Americanmade weapons. An exact accounting of the military equipment currently in the Taliban‘s hands is not available, though one expert estimated that the total value was closer to $10 billion. In this war, “superior weapons capability” did not have any effect at all, in fact, the Taliban gained 10 billion dollars‘ worth of weaponry.

Given the US history of overselling the efficiency of its military equipment, the previous sentiments may be a bit grandiose for reality. In Afghanistan, the US perceived ―military superiority‖ was proven inadequate to win the war. CNN reported that the Air Force halted deliveries of Boeing aircraft on February 20 after trash and industrial tools — known as foreign object debris, or FOD — were found on board some planes after production was completed.

The future of Arkansas‘ economy, along with the other states, will be dependent upon constant wars. It can be extrapolated that 42 states, receiving more funding from the DOD and subsidiary governmental agencies will also be forced into supporting wars because their jobs will depend on them. This may be why protests for peace are ineffective due to the windfall profits for weapons manufacturers and for our elected capitalist officials and the fear of workers losing jobs.

Until all workers understand the dangerous and economically unsound direction being forced upon them by our war economy, which ultimately is unsustainable due to the push-back from other countries. Due to our capitalist government‘s insistence on forever wars, our country will continue to struggle for our basic needs, whether it be housing, health care, food, education, etc.

The post The Myth of the Working Class Benefiting from the War Economy appeared first on The Communist.

Humankind is entering a new epoch – the epoch of the emergence of viable alternative forces against US economic and military hegemony. It is the beginning of the epoch of multipolarity. This new development in world history is objectively progressive for the international working class as another weapon against US economic and military hegemony over the world. Therefore, multipolarity must be backed by Communists.

The epoch of multipolarity was kicked off with the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) in the Ukraine, a response to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization‘s (NATO‘s) historical campaign to encircle and Balkanize Russia. This campaign has proceeded for the last 30 years, despite former US Secretary of State James Baker‘s promise upon meeting Gorbachev in 1990, where Baker stated that NATO would not expand ―one inch eastward‖ from the boundaries it held at the time. The SMO was the first substantial fightback against Western imperialist hegemony in the post-Soviet era, and it opened the door to a new era of struggle against NATO and its proxy forces around the world.

The Russian Special Military Operation did not come out of the blue nor was it an act of Russian aggression. It was in response to the installation of a pro-fascist government in the Ukraine with aspirations to arm itself with nuclear weapons against Russia. This pro-fascist government was installed under the direction of the US State Department during the Euromaidan coup of 2014, which overthrew the legally elected pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych. Only seventy-three years earlier, the Soviet people, both Russian and Ukrainian, had fought together against the fascist menace during World War II.

The Special Military Operation occurred within the context of other geopolitical shifts, both gradual and sudden. People‘s China had already taken the lead through the Belt and Road initiative in developing countries which had been exploited and underdeveloped by Western imperialism. This reduced these initiative countries‘ dependence on trade agreements with the United States and its allies, thus bringing them out from under the thumb of NATO and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Belt and Road initiative was accompanied by the formation of substantial geopolitical alliances. Foremost among these alliances in the present era is BRICS, which is an acronym standing for the names of the countries which originally entered the alliance: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The BRICS alliance was first formed in 2009, and, despite any claims to the contrary, it has objectively worked to undermine US/NATO hegemony. The BRICS alliance fosters trade and economic cooperation among the antiimperialist countries of the world.

One of the objective outcomes of this cooperation is the gradual de-dollarization of the world economy. De-dollarization refers to the shift away from the US dollar as international the de currency facto of exchange. The historical use of the US dollar throughout the world has given the United States economic leverage over developing countries through fostering a dependence on the American financial system. Dedollarization is being achieved through a number of measures undertaken by BRICS, one of which is the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which was established by treaty during the Sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza and Brasilia in July of 2014. The CRA protects against US economic coercion which has in the past been enacted through measures such as sanctions and trade embargoes.

De-dollarization weakening of means the Western imperialism. Wherever the US dollar goes, there the American flag is planted. Historically, the Marshall Plan, which was purported to be the path to the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, was in fact a means by which the United States first expanded its economic domination to a worldwide extent. In reality, the Marshall Plan created more markets for the US to sell its goods. De-dollarization is part of the process that is ending the unipolar world which was inaugurated by the Marshall Plan.

In addition to taking the lead in the anti-imperialist economic system, People‘s China has also emerged as a leader in the geopolitical landscape through their brokering of international diplomacy without the involvement of the Western imperialist countries. This is exemplified through China‘s role in creating the agreement and rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, as well as the Declaration.

The Beijing Declaration was an agreement arranged by China involving 14 leading representative groups of the Palestinian people. It united these groups under the representation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to work together towards a solution of the Israel-Palestine crisis. This solution consists of the creation of an independent Palestinian state with United Nations representation.

There are certain sects who masquerade as Marxist-Leninists that oppose the development of multipolarity because it is not directly building socialism. They allege that those who see the strategic utility of multipolarity in fighting US imperialism are claiming that it will directly bring socialism. Their arguments create a ―straw-man which they then proceed to knock down. This position is disingenuous, since no principled Communists have ever stated that multipolarity will bring socialism.

Communists understand that the class struggle However, is primary. anti-imperialist struggles, such as those which have been brought into focus by the emergence of multipolarity, serve to set the stage for the victory of the working class. Multipolarity is a path for nations to re-assert their sovereignty against the puppet regimes which have been set up under the control of Western imperialist forces throughout the preceding decades.

The proponents of multipolarity are correct in concluding that a weakening of US economic leverage in world affairs will inevitably reduce proclivity towards the US‘ military interventionism. As Marxist-Leninist theory explains, bourgeois correctly foreign policy is fundamentally linked with the drive of capitalism for markets. With a reduced capacity to expand in foreign markets, imperialist countries can be expected to similarly lessen their military intervention. Thus, as a result of this reduced economic coercion and interventionism, military international uprisings are more likely to succeed and the road to socialism will become more accessible.

On the other hand, there seems to be a certain ideological tendency among those in the anti-imperialist movement who idolize non-Communist theocratic or bourgeois states that are in the forefront in fighting US imperialism. Our support of these countries in their fight against US economic and military hegemony does not preclude the Communist criticism of certain reactionary domestic policies they hold. It is worth noting that some of these theocratic and bourgeois states have a long history in physically attacking Communists and banning Communist parties in their respective countries. Furthermore, we recognize that, first and foremost, the loyalty of bourgeois states is to their own economic ruling class, not to their working class.

In conclusion, while multipolarity does not represent the direct path to the victory of the working class and the establishment of socialism, it is the first step in destroying the Western imperialist hegemony which has previously been unchallenged since the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union. Thus, the correct dialectical view for Communists throughout the world is to support the development of multipolarity as another tool in the struggle of the international proletariat against monopoly capital.

The post On Multipolarity appeared first on The Communist.

Comrade Gus Hall analyzed some of the elements indicating a mass breakaway from the old parties in his report to the post-election November 1976 meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He then said:

Growing Disaffection 

Is there an objective basis for initiatives in the direction of a new, mass anti-monopoly party?

Nationally, it is increasingly obvious that despite President Jimmy Carter’s standing in the polls, there is a swelling current of disenchantment with him, particularly among those who voted for him as “the lesser evil” and whose expectations he aroused. Evidence on this score piles up daily:

• In the ranks of organized labor there developed early considerable criticism of the Carter Administration’s refusal to support its demand for a $3 hourly minimum wage and of Carter’s miserly counter-proposals.
  Similarly, many trade unionists are bitter about the Administration’s failure to make real efforts to win passage of the situs picketing bill, long a demand of the building trades unions. Further, there is considerable resentment at the Administration for putting on ice any repealer of Section 14B of the Taft Hartley law, which legalizes the so-called right-to-work law, the notorious measure used, particularly in the South, to strangle the union shop and, indeed, union organization. This resentment continues to exist in the labor movement, notwithstanding the maneuvering of AFL-CIO President George Meany to patch up matters with Carter. If anything, the placid acceptance by Carter of a high level of unemployment for years to come has solidified a critical attitude toward him in labor’s ranks. The issue of jobs has become the number one question for organized labor, as it has for unorganized workers. Even Meany, feeling the pressure from the ranks, has had to attack Carter publicly for stressing “balancing the budget” as against jobs for the jobless.
• In the Black people’s movement there is a tidal wave of discontent with the Carter Administration. It reached something of a peak in late August with an extraordinary “summit meeting” of representatives of 15 leading organizations of Black people, including the Congressional Black Caucus. Earlier, there were expressions of criticism at the NAACP national convention by Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., executive director of the National Urban League; by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, head of PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), and by others.
  But the summit session had a qualitatively new character. There was an evident shattering of illusions and the emergence of a common strategy for a counter-offensive against what the Rev. Jackson called “the callous neglect” by the Carter Administration of the Blacks and the poor generally. The central aim, the summit agreed, was the fight for jobs, for a full employment policy, with special emphasis on jobs for the Black youth, among whom unemployment ranges up to 86 percent, according to some estimates.
  This criticism of Carter from wide sections of the Black community, cutting across ideological and organization lines, is tinged with a special bitterness. The Black people feel — and this is supported by the election figures — that they, plus some sections of labor, provided the margin of Carter’s narrow election victory over Republican Gerald Ford. There is a deep feeling that Carter betrayed his campaign promises, especially in respect to the bread and-butter issues. Significantly, Carter, who earlier had referred to Jordan’s criticism as “demagogic,” talked differently after the summit meeting. The White House response, according to Jody Powell, Carter’s press secretary, “ought to be moderate and responsible.” Subsequently, Carter met with the House Black Caucus.
• Among liberal Democrats there is also disillusionment, reflected most clearly by the sharply critical speech of Senator George McGovern at this year’s convention of Americans for Democratic Action. McGovern and other liberal Democrats are attacking Carter not only for reneging on his campaign pledges but also for refusing to fight for his own measures when the political going gets rough. For example, the Administration sponsored a universal voter registration measure, the effect of which would be to simplify procedures, thus increasing the number of people who actually vote. (Such a law is on the statute books of Minnesota and Wisconsin and has in fact raised the total percentage of voters beyond that of the other states.) However, the Administration backed away from its own bill, a simple democratic measure, after the Republican high command and some Southern Democratic Senators emitted a few growls. 

Neutron Bomb and L’Affair Lance 

Likewise, criticism of Carter’s betrayal of his pledge to cut the military budget has surfaced along with expressions of outrage at the proposal to build the neutron bomb (“spare the property and kill the people”). The giant American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), which supported him in the 1976 campaign, waged an effective drive against the B-l bomber, undoubtedly a factor in the decision to halt it. Opposition to the neutron bomb is widespread, even in circles which rarely speak up on such questions. Thus, for instance, the National Coalition of American Nuns, according to the lay Catholic magazine Commonwealth, wrote Carter:

Nor does this exhaust the issues around which there is discontent. Carter’s stalling on a national health bill has evoked criticism among people who were his 1976 supporters. And even his high-pressure “human rights” campaign has met with considerable skepticism, with more than one commentator noting acidly that Carter exempts such tyrannies as South Korea and Iran for reasons of alleged “national security.”

Beyond these clearly defined groupings of labor, the Black people’s organizations and liberal Democrats, the Bert Lance scandal has set off widespread comment about “cronyism” in the White House. Carter’s defense of his old Georgia pal and appointee to the key post of director of the Office of Management and Budget in the face of the evidence of the latter’s financial shenanigans as banker politician drew attacks from many quarters, including some old southern supporters. The sharp contrast between Carter’s sanctimonious pre-election preachments and his behavior in L’Affaire Lance is widely noted. Some columnists have even hinted that Carter’s election campaign may have been partially financed through Lance’s curious fiscal didoes.

Not all the discontent is aimed at Washington, however. In city after city there are local struggles around cutbacks of social services, layoffs of municipal workers and the perennial City Hall scandals. New York City is the most dramatic example, but the situation is virtually epidemic since the urban areas have borne the main shock of the banker and monopoly drive to lower the living standards of the people. 

Developments Toward Independence 

How is all this affecting the electoral process?

It has been noted for some time that there has been a steady alienation of the electorate from the process. Nearly half the eligible voters did not participate in the 1976 elections (less than 54 per cent) and the curve has been generally downward since 1960 when about 60 percent voted in the presidential elections.

Nor is 1977 showing much change, judging by the municipal primaries which with rare exceptions — New York City — continued to indicate wide disinterest in the selection of candidates by the old parties.

Among those who do take part in the electoral process there is mounting evidence of independence from the two old parties. For example, of 2,150 candidates whose names appeared on a primary and/or a general election ballot for the House of Representatives or Senate in 1976, 13 per cent (about 280) were independents, that is, they ran either without a party designation or as minor party candidates. (By no means, however, should all these be regarded as progressive candidates. Some of these “independents” were clearly ultra-Rightists.)

Independence among the registered voters, in the sense of non-affiliation with either of the two old parties, continues to grow. The New York State Board of Elections reported recently that the number of independents had passed beyond the 1 million mark for the first time in the state’s history. In varying degree, the same trend is apparent in other states.

But this phenomenon, while reflecting a lack of enthusiasm for either old party, is not yet true independence, that is, a break with the two old parties. Most of those who decline to enroll themselves as either Republicans or Democrats are generally “swing” voters. They say they vote “the candidate, not the party.” Frequently, it means shuttling between the two old parties and “splitting” their tickets between candidates of both.

Evidence of this shuttling was seen even in the first months of the Carter Administration. In the special election in Washington State’s 7^th Congressional District to replace Rep. Brock Adams, a Democrat appointed Secretary of Transportation, a Republican won in this traditionally Democratic area. Reportedly, Carter’s threat of a gasoline tax was a major issue in the election. Most of the voters, reflecting a widespread anti-monopoly mood, regarded the tax as a ripoff designed to benefit the oil trusts and voted accordingly. They switched to the GOP to register their protest, apparently because they saw no viable alternative. (Significantly, the three byelections since Carter’s inauguration in January have all seen Democratic candidates defeated, the last being in a rock-ribbed Democratic district in Louisiana.)

What can be expected in the organized labor movement in respect to political action?

Within the labor movement some degree of change can be anticipated, particularly if the United Auto Workers union votes to re-affiliate to the AFL-CIO. The UAW and the new leadership of the Machinists union, together with the Communication Workers, AFSCME and the other unions which opposed George Meany’s “neutrality” in the Nixon-McGovern race of 1972 (and even formed their own committee) will tend to group together again. These unions tend to be critical of the Carter Administration. Some see the necessity of forming a political pressure bloc. But it will be a bloc within the general administration orbit, a bloc to the Left of Meany and the Administration, designed largely to offset pressures from the Right. It should have a limited usefulness in checking anti-labor legislation and advancing social welfare and civil rights measures and perhaps even supporting some liberal moves in foreign policy.

But, soberly viewed, all this is a considerable way from a new people’s anti-monopoly party, although it cannot be ruled out that one or another labor leader, under pressure from the rank and file, may become associated with a movement for a mass people’s party.

It must be concluded at this moment that while there is considerable ferment in the country and disenchantment with the two old parties, this does not yet spell out a solid national movement for a new mass, anti-monopoly party. There are a few local coalitions that are promising but a national movement along these lines does not exist today. In this respect the situation is considerably different than that preceding the 1948 election when the Progressive Party fielded a third party presidential ticket headed by Henry Wallace. In late 1946 and throughout 1947 there was active agitation and organization on a nation-wide scale for such a national ticket, all of it laying the groundwork for the 1948 presidential campaign. In the 1976 election campaign the question of building a mass anti-monopoly party was raised in the speeches of Gus Hall and Jarvis Tyner, the Communist candidates for President and Vice President, respectively. While mass reaction was friendly to the idea, few public figures other than Hall and Tyner chose to discuss the question. 

Needed: Ongoing Grassroots Work 

Clearly, ferment and disenchantment may create a political climate in which a new mass party can be built but no more than that. The actual process — and the term process must be stressed — by which such a party will be built in the U.S. is exceedingly complex. It of course requires constant agitation for such a party but it will not be built by ringing rhetoric calling for masses of voters to leave the two old parties.

Experience over the years demonstrates that effective third parties grow out of mass movements on great social issues. Thus, the Republican party of the mid-19^th century arose out of the struggle around For Peace, Jobs, Equality chattel slavery. The LaFollette presidential candidacy of 1924 on the Progressive Party line had as its basis the struggle of the trade union movement against the post-World War I anti-labor drive, as well as the revolt of the small farmers against monopoly. The Progressive Party of 1948 arose primarily in the struggle against the cold war.

From this it follows that a new mass people’s party can arise today only through the participation of masses in the main economic and political struggles of the day — for jobs and wage increases, against monopoly prices and extortionate utility rates, for rent control and public housing, against cutbacks of social services, against the swollen military budget and for nuclear disarmament. A special element of today’s struggle must be the fight against pervasive racism and the systematic effort to destroy the gains made in the civil rights battles of the ’60s. The totality of all this is a many-sided struggle against monopoly capital.

But even participation in struggle, while basic, is of itself not enough. Millions have participated in economic and political struggles in the past but have not drawn the conclusion of the need for a break with the two-party system. In short, there is nothing automatic about the birth of a new mass united front anti-monopoly party. The conscious element is decisive, given the movement of millions in struggle.

What is required is concrete work for such a party on many levels, starting at the grassroots with legislative and political activity that stems from and is fused with the struggles around day-to-day issues. This work — on a 365-days-a-year basis — must have as one of its major objectives the building of independent coalition movements around labor candidates, Black candidates, candidates of other national groups, women candidates, youth candidates — in short, candidates standing on a platform of united anti-monopoly struggle. There will be no mass anti-monopoly party in the field in the 1980 presidential elections unless solid grassroots bases are built in 1977, 1978 and 1979. 

United Front Approach 

It is true that only a relative minority of those involved in grassroots coalitions will have the outlook of a formal breakaway from the two old parties. Many will retain some old party ties. Many will continue to participate in old party primaries even as they express increasing independence on issues and help to build independent movements. That means that the forces committed to seeking a genuine political alternative cannot ignore the old party primaries. These primaries can sometimes become the arenas of struggle around issues that are part of the process of building a new anti-monopoly party.

It should be remembered that progressive congressmen like John Conyers and Ron Dellums, for example, while taking advanced positions and increasingly associating themselves with independent forces, still feel it necessary to use the Democratic Party locally as a political vehicle. Nor can we forget political history. The late Vito Marcantonio, probably the most progressive congressman of this century, began as a Republican and used the Republican ballot line as a vehicle. At the same time he was building up an independent apparatus and advancing an independent progressive program, remaining a nominal Republican until the American Labor Party of the 1930’s developed as a balance-of-power party in New York State.

There will undoubtedly be similar developments along the road to a new mass people’s party today. Committed third party forces may find themselves in grassroots political coalitions with supporters of Jimmy Carter. They may find themselves working for independent local candidates who on a national level back the Carter Administration. This is an inevitable element of any genuine mass united front anti monopoly movement.

This was the case in the superb Mark Allen campaign in Berkeley last Spring, a non-partisan election for local office in which a splendid united front of struggle was built, a united front in which the non-Communist participants (the majority) were regarded — and felt themselves — as equals in the united front. Great credit goes to those who understood and correctly applied these united front policies, particularly to Mark Allen, a candidate in the great tradition of Communist Councilman Pete Cacchione and Ben Davis, and also to the leadership of the California Communist Party.

On a somewhat different level is New York, where the Coalition for Independent Politics is slowly building a movement that includes people who are prepared to accept a progressive program but still regard the Democratic primary as an indispensable element of their campaigns. And in Connecticut, a citizens’ group for independent political action, including labor people, Black leaders and community activists, has been convoked.

Similar situations exist, perhaps only in embryos, in other areas. Tactical elements will vary from state to state but the essential strategic task remains the same — the gathering of the forces moving in the direction of independent progressive political action.

But perhaps a word of warning would not be out of order. Day-to-day organization is required but it must be pervaded by the underlying concept that the building of an effective anti-monopoly movement and party is the next great task on the agenda of the working class and its allies. It is a historic struggle for democracy and will be bitterly resisted by the ruling class. It is a massive undertaking, greater even than the battle for the organization of the unorganized workers into industrial unions in the 30s and 40s. Already we see efforts in some states to tighten further the already restrictive election laws and limit access to the ballot for independents and minority parties.

But a mighty people’s movement can overcome these obstacles. Uniting the great majority who are the victims of monopoly capital, it can sweep aside the ruling class barriers and move towards the formation of a mass anti-monopoly people’s party that will effectively challenge the two old parties of capitalism.

1. Adapted (and updated) from remarks delivered to a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee and National Council, May 30, 1977. ︎
2. Hall, Gus, The 1976 Elections — Mandate for Struggle; New Outlook Publishers: New York, 1976, pp. 13-14. ︎
3. Commonweal, August 19, 1977. ︎

The post On Building a Mass Anti-Monopoly Party appeared first on The Communist.

Longshoremen walked off the job at 12:01 am October 1^st for a strike that lasted three days. The demands included a 77% pay raise over six years, maintaining ILA jurisdiction, protecting Container Royalties^[1], and no automation of ILA jobs.

Bourgeois Attacks on the Strike

In typical bourgeois fashion, the country was sent into a panic by the three-day strike as the media warned of empty shelves, and a shattered economy in the weeks leading up to the strike. After the devastating Hurricane Helene made landfall in late September, the capitalist-controlled media rushed to further fear-monger about how the strike would “block the recovery” for the hurricane’s victims.

Attacks on the strike escalated against the workers after the New York Post had a field day with the contradictions regarding the bourgeois lifestyle led by ILA President, Harold Daggett.^[2] The bloated salaries and lavish lifestyles of many business unionist bureaucrats, including Daggett, do not reflect the living standards of the rank-and-file members and are used to diminish the workers’ struggle. There will be more on this, what Lenin dubbed the “labor aristocracy,” later.

Fitting in their “exposé”, the NY Post article had no mention of the exorbitant salaries paid out to the CEOs of the port carriers, represented by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). USMX is a modern-day cartel aimed at monopolizing control of the East and Gulf Coast ports in the United States. USMX plays a similar role in the collective bargaining process that the National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC) did in the railroad dispute in 2022.

We also saw the typical attacks from Conservative and Republican Party politicians, and even sections of the Democratic Party as the so-called “party of labor” had its share of attacks on striking dock workers.

Citing an article on the ILA’s website where Daggett showed empathy for Trump after his alleged assassination attempt, many Democratic Party operatives, including former Obama staffer Jon Cooper, attacked the strike as a stunt to damage the economy to get Donald Trump elected. This rhetoric lasted throughout the entire strike, refusing to take into account the union’s attempts at negotiating a new Master Contract well in advance of the prior contract’s expiration. In a statement the ILA released on the first day of the strike, the union noted how negotiations went with the USMX:

“Let’s be clear: the ILA has been fully prepared to negotiate a fair contract since two years before its expiration. USMX’s claim that they are ready to bargain rings hollow when they waited until the eve of a potential strike to present this offer. The last offer from USMX was back in February 2023, and the ILA has been listening to our members’ concerns ever since.”

We cannot also forget the role played by Daggett and the ILA leadership in securing the AFL-CIO endorsement for President Biden in the 2020 election. This endorsement was in doubt after the resolution passed by the AFL-CIO convention in 2017 ending labor’s support for the “lesser of two evils.”^[3]

The Ultra-Left, Objective Agents of the Bourgeoisie, Attack Striking Workers

To be clear, we cannot be surprised by bourgeois attacks on strike actions, even from political operatives of parties that claim to support the labor movement. Those attacks are expected. It’s the attacks by groupings who claim to be “fighters for the working class”, many of whom even call themselves Socialists and Communists who openly attacked the strike, boldly pronounced their position against it, all while claiming to push a “leftist” agenda.

Such a position can be described as nothing short of “left in form, right in essence,” a phrase many of us within the Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) use to describe the various elements of the ultra-left. To understand the nature of these attacks it is important to understand the petty-bourgeois nature of ultra-leftism, no matter what form it may take—i.e., Anarchism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, generic “Leftism”, Sakaiism, etc.

It must be noted that the basic concept of class struggle has been rejected by the modern ultra-left. We can routinely see these forces attack actual Communists with the phrase “class reductionist” while hiding behind a hammer and sickle. In his work, “Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism”, former CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall noted:

“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.”^[4]

He went on to say:

“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.”^[5]

The ultra-left attacks were aimed at the agreement made by ILA leadership to continue moving military cargo during the strike, a practice dating back to strikes as far back as the First World War. The current genocide being waged against the Palestinians by the Netanyahu regime was used as a reason to not back striking workers. The ultra-left even used a statement by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, backing the blocking of arms shipments to justify their position.^[6] What they left out is that the ILWU, including Local 10, supported the striking ILA workers. This support was carried out in multiple ways. First and foremost, the ILWU respected the ILA picket lines by not unloading cargo diverted to the West Coast ports; the ILWU also sent a contingent of members to join the ILA picket lines.

It must be noted that for the ILA strike to have been most effective, not just for the longshoremen themselves, but for the anti-imperialist struggle, it would have been necessary to block the shipments of military cargo. So this brings us to another criticism the ultra-left had, which was that the strike was merely an economic one. It is easy to criticize the strike for its failure to block the shipment of weapons from the outside, but what is being done to organize and educate these workers politically? The lack of seriousness in these attacks is demonstrated by the ultra-left’s use of J. Sakai’s abomination of a text, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat.  (See Image )

It is also worth noting that within the framework of the ultra-left position is the rejection of working within the trade union movement. These forces reject the working class in the US as having any revolutionary potential (along the lines of the thesis of Sakai’s Settlers) despite the rise in militancy, and in spite of the fact there is no vanguard to lead the way. What this amounts to is a rejection of Lenin’s thesis that revolutionaries must work within reactionary trade unions to push them left, and to make them a leading force in a future dictatorship of the proletariat. As Leninists we must also remember the wise words of Comrade Lenin in his brilliant polemic against the ultra-left of his time:

“The Party must more than ever and in a new way, not only in the old way, educate and guide the trade unions, at the same time bearing in mind that they are and will long remain an indispensable ‘school of Communism’ and a preparatory school that trains the proletarians to exercise their dictatorship.”^[7]

Comrade Gus Hall further explained plainly why we should not take these attacks seriously:

“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.”^[8]

Are the Ultra-Left Correct?

It is worth noting that having the correct ideas is not enough; if they are not applied properly and you are unable to win over the masses, it means nothing. Gus Hall once again said it perfectly:

“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. … [The workers] do not respond to ideas–even good ideas–if they do not see their self-interests involved in these ideas.”^[9]

With this in mind, the ultra-left position in the abstract is a correct one. It is up to the working class to take the fight to imperialism, and blocking military cargo in a time when US imperialists are arming the genocide of the Palestinian people would be at the forefront of this fight. What is missing is the state of the labor movement at present time; we are living in a time where we are working to rebuild our vanguard role in the working-class movement since the post-Gus Hall leadership of the old Party abandoned class struggle for tailism.

Without a Communist presence in the rank and file to build a class-oriented movement we cannot expect the masses, who lack class consciousness, to lead this struggle by themselves. For a strike to lead to a political strug­gle, we must embed ourselves in the rank and file to lead an edu­cation campaign to build the class consciousness of the work­ers.

In laying out the Comintern plan to “bolshevize” the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries, O. Piatnitsky laid out how the Bolsheviks worked within the trade unions:

“… at the very beginning of the development of the labor movement the Bolsheviks established a connection between the economic struggle and the political. When the sentiments of the workers in the factories became favorable towards a strike, the Bolshevik cells immediately placed themselves in the leadership. The strikes in single shops spread to all departments, a strike in a single factory spread to all the other factories, and the strikes of the factory workers, under the influence and leadership of the Bolshevik Party organizations (our emphasis—Ed.), frequently assumed the forms of street demonstrations, and in this way the economic strikes developed into a political struggle.”^[10]

In the immediate lead-up to the strike, Democratic President Joe Biden announced he would not enact the Taft-Hartley act which would have imposed a 90-day “cooling-off period” that would have forced the dock workers back to work until January. There is no doubt that if military cargo was blocked, Biden would have forced this Taft-Hartley cooling-off period on the longshoremen. At the dock worker picket line on the first day of the strike, several rank-and-file members did not express a prior understanding of how the strike can impact the political situation. After some discussion, workers seemed to confirm the idea that shutting down military cargo would have led to Biden enforcing Taft-Hartley on the striking longshoremen. This would have meant the total destruction of the strike itself.

On the ultra-left’s aversion to working within reactionary trade unions, we must note that it is unequivocally wrong for anyone who claims to be a Communist to hold this anti-Leninist position. In talking about the German “Left” in his day, Lenin made it clear:

“In their opinion, decla­mations, and angry ejacu­lations … against ‘reac­tionary’ and ‘counter-rev­olutionary’ trade unions are sufficient ‘proof’ that it is unnecessary and even impermissible for revolu­tionaries and communists to work in yellow, social-chauvinist, compromising, counter-revolutionary trade unions. …

“But however strongly the German ‘Lefts’ may be convinced of the revolutionism of such tactics, these tactics are in fact fundamentally wrong, and amount to no more than empty phrase-mongering.”^[11]

Improving Our Work on Industrial Concentration is Essential to Becoming a Vanguard Party

The ILA strike, in addition to other strikes of recent years, has demonstrated that the labor movement in the United States is ripe for the development of a higher class-consciousness. The ultra-left with their comments against the strike have shown that they will not be able to lead this movement. The vanguard Party which emerges to lead the American labor movement must instead be rooted in the working class through the policy of industrial concentration.

Since our Second Congress, the PCUSA has embarked on a plan of Industrial Concentration. This plan is important for multiple reasons, most notably to increase Communist cadre within the key industries. In order to be the vanguard of the working class, Communists must root themselves in the working class.

It is, however, not enough to push a policy of Industrial Concentration merely for Party building. It is imperative that we build these cadres within the key industries in the United States. Special focus must be made on the industries that have seen an increase of labor militancy within the recent strike wave. These industries include the railroad, automotive, shipping/logistics and specifically the longshore industry as these constitute the most essential foundations of the US imperialist order.

It seems we are still in a stage where Communists do not grasp the importance of an Industrial Concentration policy. We need to increase this understanding, which is why we held the recent Peoples School for Marxist-Leninist Studies class on Industrial Concentration. Also, the PCUSA Labor Commission is working with the Jones-Foster School for Party Education to develop a class to be included in its cadre ascension curriculum.

To help build this understanding, we must look to the former CPUSA Organizational Secretary Henry Winston, who said it best in 1948:

“What is the essence of a concentration policy?

“First of all, it requires a fundamental understanding of the role of the workers in the basic industries, in relation to the working class and the life of the country as a whole. It is precisely these workers employed in the huge plants by the tens of thousands who, as Lenin pointed out, become educated to understand the need for unity, collective action and solidarity by the very process of large-scale production itself. One cannot conceive of successfully building the Progressive Party [or the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition of today—Ed.], of organizing an effective fight against the Draft [conscription], or in defense of civil liberties, a successful fight against war and fascism, unless this section of the working class is fully mobilized. And, of course, one cannot speak of winning the American workers for Socialism without winning the majority of this section of the working class. It is necessary to permeate the entire Party with this consciousness.

“Secondly, such a policy requires the selection of the points of concentration where a base must be secured, if we are to set in motion the entire labor movement. This means knowing which districts must be given major national attention, which industries are key and what plants are decisive. … While we must strengthen the Party in all basic industries, we must particularly select for major concentration such industries as steel, auto, mining, maritime, electrical and railroad. Within these industries we must pursue a policy of concentration in key industrial towns and key plants and departments—with special consideration to the most underpaid sections of the workers, the unskilled and semi-skilled. …

“Thirdly, the full mobilization of the Party is required to achieve the objectives of our concentration policy. Concretely, this means that all Party clubs must have a share in the responsibility for work at the concentration points. Communists in the mass organizations, trade unions, etc., should try to convince these organizations similarly to pursue a concentration policy.

“Fourthly, beginning with the national and state leaderships, the entire Party must be involved in planning, guiding, and assuming systematic control and check-up of concentration objectives. All political and organizational problems must be discussed and reviewed from the standpoint of how to realize them in concentration industries. Systematic discussion of the problems in concentration industries must be organized in the top political bodies of the Party. Our leadership must be unsparing in the allocation of capable forces, finances, literature, and other material assistance.”^[12]

This excerpt comes from Winston’s speech to the 14^th CPUSA Convention. It must be understood that this took place during the early stages of the second “Red Scare” in the United States. Specifically, it came a little more than one year after the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was passed forcing labor leaders to sign affidavits stating they were not members of the Communist Party. To go along with this campaign the business unionists within the CIO worked with the Truman’s Democratic Party administration to purge all militants from their unions under the guise of anti-Communism.

When the CIO was not successful in their purging of Communists in member-unions they purged the unions themselves as they did with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU); International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill); Food and Tobacco Workers (FTA); International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE). The CIO even went so far as to work with the State Department and Westinghouse Corporation to create the International United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (IUE) as a dual union to raid the membership of the UE.^[13]

The Party’s policy of Industrial Concentration has been aimed at rebuilding the influence the Communists once had in the American trade union movement. To this point neither the PCUSA nor the CPUSA has yet been able to reclaim this great legacy. It has not been all failure though, as the CPUSA, under the leadership of Gus Hall, was involved in the expansion of the rank-and-file movement in the 1970s. This involvement started with the Rank and File Conference in Chicago on June 27-28, 1970 which set up the National Coordinating Committee for Trade Union Action and Democracy (TUAD).^[14] Today, the trade union movement is just now beginning to emerge from the lowest point since its inception. Communists now have the opportunity to take the militant rumblings and develop them into a class-oriented force capable of taking on the stranglehold of modern monopoly capital. A well-implemented policy of Industrial Concentration is the only means with which this historic task can be accomplished.

[1] Container Royalties—special payments made to longshoremen to compensate for a decrease in employment opportunities caused by the use of containerized shipping. These payments are calculated based off of tonnage.

[2] https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/business/harold-daggetts-sprawling-nj-mansion-has-bentley-5-car-garage-and-guest-house/

[3] https://aflcio.org/resolutions/resolution-2-independent-political-voice.

[4] Hall, Gus, “Crisis of Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism”, The Communist, Vol. 2; PCUSA Ideological Department: Seattle, 2022, p. 44.

[5] Ibid., p. 48.

[6] https://www.internationalist.org/ilwu-local-10-calls-for-labor-boycott-arms-to-israel-2405.html.

[7] Lenin, V.I., “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, p. 46.

[8] Hall, Op. Cit., 2022, p. 44.

[9] Hall, Op. Cit., 2022, pp. 43-44.

[10] Piatnitsky, O., The Bolshevization of the Communist Parties in the Capitalist Countries: By Eradicating Social-Democratic Traditions; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2024, pp. 13-14.

[11] Lenin, Op. Cit., 2022, p. 41.

[12] Winston, Henry, “For a Fighting Party Rooted Among the Industrial Workers”, Selected Works of Henry Winston, Vol. 1; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2024, pp. 92-94.

[13] Sears, John Bennett, The Electrical Unions and the Cold War; International Publishers: New York, 2019, pp. 67-72.

[14] Morris, George, Rebellion in the Unions: A Handbook for Rank-and-File Action; New Outlook Publishers: New York, New York, 1971, p. 145.

The post The International Longshoremen’s Association Strike, the Bankruptcy of the Ultra-Left, and the Need for a Policy of Industrial Concentration appeared first on The Communist.

“Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership. … Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat.”

For the past few decades, American electoral politics has been shifting evermore rightward while pitting working-class Americans against one another. Today, we see that, just as FDR predicted, the American people have chosen the side of reaction as a result of the worsening economic realities they face.

As Communists, we have a duty to explain the general crisis in the capitalist society and how that creates the conditions for a sharpening of reactionary politics. Furthermore, we will present the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition will be the path for Communists and all progressive Americans to work towards an administration which will be beneficial to the American working class.

Trump: Representative of Monopoly Capital

On November 5, 2024, real estate billionaire Donald Trump was elected as the 47^th President of the United States of America. Trump was elected based on a belief that he would bring about a more prosperous economy for working people who have suffered under the post-COVID inflation of the Biden administration. However, as shown by his previous term, Trump, as a  member of the reactionary monopoly capitalist class will not come close to satisfying any of the criteria which Communists put forward for support of a candidate, namely, support for labor, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism.

In terms of organized labor, while the leadership of almost all AFL-CIO unions endorsed the Democratic Party in the 2024 election, the reality among the rank-and-file was significantly different. Many American workers think that Trump’s anti-immigrant policies will make the job market be more in their favor, making it easier for them to find and keep work.

In reality, Trump has been, and will be, as antagonistic to organized labor as any monopoly capitalist would be expected to be. Donald Trump has refused to guarantee that he will veto right to work legislation, as the Teamsters have called for. His appointees in the Supreme Court are likely to rule the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unconstitutional in the pending Amazon v. NLRB case, which would be a massive step backwards for labor’s right to organize in America. Recently, Elon Musk, who has sued to throw out the NLRB, has been named to the leadership of Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency.” This organization will likely push deregulation, including labor standards like OSHA and NLRB regulations that protect labor unions.

On the issue of oppressed peoples, Trump has already made openly xenophobic comments during the 2024 presidential race itself. In his speeches, Trump has attempted to stir reactionary anti-immigrant sentiments by falsely stating that Haitian immigrants were “eating pets.”

Furthermore, on the issue of LGBT+ rights, Trump has promised that his administration will rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and will assert that federal civil rights laws do not cover anti-LGBT+ discrimination. Already, Trump has stated he will introduce a day-one bill recognizing only male and female genders. He has stated, “We will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique.”

There are some on the Left who claim that Trump will be better than Harris would have been when it comes to the issues of war and imperialism. However, the reality is that Trump shows many of the same issues in this area.

On the issue of Israel-Palestine, Trump is a good friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently waging a genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza. Trump has called for the recognition of the whole of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and he has derailed the road to a US-recognized Palestinian state by unilaterally moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is contrary to the UN position of including East Jerusalem in Palestine. Furthermore, Trump has stated that he will install Mike Huckabee, a prominent Christian Zionist who is fully opposed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, as the ambassador to Israel.

Furthermore, Trump has already signaled that he will be just as hawkish on People’s China as the Democratic Party would be, which is particularly important in the context of the potential upcoming conflict involving the Chinese province of Taiwan. As a representative of monopoly capital, his interest is in removing America’s dependency on the Chinese semiconductor industry.

There are some ultra-left forces in the US, especially the so-called “MAGA Communists”, which have, through their actions, objectively endorsed Trump as “the lesser of two evils” for President in 2024. However, the reality is that a Trump Administration would be just as, if not more, detrimental to the cause of labor, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism as the Democratic Party will be.

Despite all of Trump’s drawbacks, he was still elected over the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. The American people indicated through their vote that they were unhappy with the Biden administration, and that they were looking for a change. Because no viable progressive Democratic Party alternative was presented, the people instead moved to the right, towards Trump.

What is to Be Done?

The International Communist Movement throughout its history has been successful when it was able to identify the primary contradictions in society. From these contradictions the communists then clearly forge a path that exploits the divisions within the camps of the working class’ enemies.

From 2016 onward, we have seen such a division within the big bourgeoisie. The conservative bourgeoisie has a desire to shift American politics to the extreme right whereas the liberal bourgeoisie is struggling to hold onto old methods to preserve the status quo. We can see that while liberal Democrat voters may have a desire to preserve democracy, it is clear the Democratic Party leadership will not be willing to do what needs to be done to preserve the Union. Communists must understand this while helping to lead the Anti-Monopoly coalition. Through a well-organized leadership of the American working class, the pro-democratic sentiment that liberal Democrats hold can be preserved.

As the rank-and-file of the trade union movement begins to understandably turn away from the Democratic Party, Communists must work to halt and reverse the growth of reactionary politics (i.e., extreme conservativism) within the American working class and steer them in a progressive direction. In order to do this, we will need to return to the days of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) when all American unions had a class-oriented political education.

This also means the creation of independent political action in the form of the anti-monopoly coalition led by organized labor. The heart of this movement will be a rank-and-file-led class-oriented trade union movement uniting all progressive elements of society.

Communists have historically been instrumental in the development of independent, progressive political action in the United States. This has been exemplified with Communist participation in the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace’s campaign for President in 1948. The Communist Party activity within the Progressive Party demonstrated the commitment to coalition building with all progressive forces. This was also called the Center-Left Coalition, especially under the leadership of Comrade Gus Hall.

The Communist Party also worked with and supported Congressman Vito Marcantonio, a member of the American Labor Party from the State of New York. Marcantonio was the only elected representative in Congress who stood up and voted against US interventionism in the Korean War. The Communist Party also backed Marcantonio because of his pro-Puerto Rican immigration policies which reflected his progressive ideology.

As the Third Congress of the Party of Communists USA affirmed:

“We call for the formation of an Anti-Monopoly Coalition as the specific form that the Popular Front will take in the USA. This will be composed of all democratic and anti-imperialist forces, including the progressive elements of the labor movement, the anti-war/peace movements, local progressive forces, and emerging third-party electoral formations which oppose US imperialism and monopoly capital.”

In today’s world, new opportunities are emerging to work with organized labor outside of the two-party duopoly. The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Worker’s Union of America (UE) has recently condemned the anti-labor activities of the picks of the Democratic and Republican Parties, and called for the creation of a labor party in the United States.

Furthermore, the Teamsters, the Firefighter’s Union, and Local 3000 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) have all chosen to not endorse either major presidential candidate. This behavior marks a shift away from the support for the Democratic Party as a party of labor, and a realization that it has become a party of big business. Now, some in organized labor are going to begin to realize that they need a party of their own. What can be clearer than to see Trump flying the unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who represents only himself and his own profits, out around the world to meet with foreign leaders on the behalf of Americans? We have seen that the people are no longer interested in following the two-party duopoly. The American people are now beginning to see that there is in reality only one major American political party, and that is the money party of monopoly capital. From November 6, the day after the election, onward, the job of American Communists is to work tirelessly and start building the anti-monopoly coalition based in organized labor.

The post The 2024 Presidential Election: Where Do We Go From Here? appeared first on The Communist.

There are differing factors that led Trump to win the 2016 election, such as the unpopularity of the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and the perception that Trump was an “outsider” from DC-Beltway politics (though Trump is a member of the capitalist class, don’t think otherwise). However, Trump’s rhetoric continued beyond his election.

The phrase “MAGA” came to represent an idea of bringing America back to a former greatness which is exemplified by an idealized vision of America’s past. This nostalgic vision forgets that America’s past has included the following: slavery, Jim Crow, indigenous genocide, McCarthy-ism, concentration camps for the Japanese, repression of LGBT+ and Women, and more. In short, though America has had progressive ideas, it has never been “great.”

In reality, the MAGA movement under Trump’s first term led to the emboldening of reactionary, quasi-fascist movements, including the march of white nationalists in Charlottesville, a rise in reactionary thought movements like Q-Anon, and a further shifting of politics to the right where religious white nationalists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who initially found their footing in the Tea Party movement, became acceptable public figures.

But how did Communism get mixed up in this? MAGA Communism has its origins in online areas where right-leaning streamers took the ideals of “MAGA” and dressed them in a veneer of Communism and began to spout the idea that “Communism will make America great again”. Its origins include online personalities like Haz Al-Din and Jackson Hinkle, later promoted by other terminally online groups like the Midwestern Marx Institute and others.

A few threads tie them together. All of these groups and people have an uncritical view of present-day capitalist Russia, underlying socially conservative ideas like believing women should be stay-at-home mothers and slandering of the LGBT+ movement under the guise of so-called “family values.” All speak positively of Russia, but hardly ever the Soviet Union. They praised Maduro, including when he attacked opposition groups which included the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV). There is nearly zero mention of either Vladimir Lenin or Joseph Stalin. These groups are social chauvinists who opportunistically tail the masses, and their ideology appears closer to Strasserism and National Bolshevism than Communism. Finally, they ideologically praise right-wing demagogues like Alexander Dugin and Lyndon LaRouche.

Strasserism and MAGA Communism: Two Peas in a Pod

This new obscure political trend, MAGA Communism, through its reactionary policies and vague platform, leads the working class into supporting billionaire populists like President Trump against sections of the working class and the downtrodden masses. In fact there are parallels between MAGA Communism and the so-called National “Socialism” of the Strasserist variety.

Strasserism draws its name from its founders, the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser, who were seen as the “left-wing” of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), also known as the Nazi Party of Germany. To understand the comparison drawn between Strasserism and MAGA Communism, we need to understand what Strasserism was in its essence.

Strasserism as a political movement was the expression of the dissatisfied petty-bourgeoisie (small entrepreneurs), who after WWI were unable to sell their goods, as wages for the working class had dropped to poverty levels and inflation made the German Mark basically worthless. Workers were permanently removed from industry and thus relegated to the underbelly of society as de-classed to the status of lumpenproletariat. These de-classed workers, reduced to fighting for their daily survival, became a breeding ground for the radicalism of this reactionary movement. Even certain sections of the proletariat, being driven from Marxism-Leninism due to the prevailing anti-Communist sentiment and suppression, were also absorbed into the reactionary radical movement. Strasserism purported to build a “socialism” that rejected the proletarian internationalism and materialist philosophy of Bolshevism in favor of an emphasis on the spiritual superiority of the Christian Germanic values.

The base of MAGA Communism is not as well-known as of now but what is known is that the origins of MAGA Communism reside in a group of online personalities such as Haz Al-Din whose infamy is derived from his YouTube platform, Infrared, and Jackson Hinkle, known for  being host of the YouTube channel Deep Dive with Jackson Hinkle. These individuals developed their platform by appealing to the backwards views (as Lenin called them) of the dispossessed. Such rallying points include their anti-LGBT+ scapegoating, going so far to say the LGBT+ movement is the new Nazi movement. Further discussion of the reactionary social policies of the MAGA Communist movement will be in another section. In a debate on the male chauvinist podcast called Fresh and Fit^[1], MAGA Communist leader Haz Al-Din claims that private enterprise is compatible with Communism so long as it “benefits the goal of the country or ultimate goals of the Party.” This is reminiscent of an excerpt from Otto Strasser’s Germany Tomorrow:

“The exchange will not be effected in accordance with the arbitrary wishes of the individual producers, but in accordance with a plan drafted to suit the needs of the State, and this will involve the existence of a State monopoly of foreign trade. Such a State monopoly will not (as does the Russian) aim at itself conducting the foreign trade, but will merely supervise, and give licenses for export to such persons as may need them..” ^[2]

Strasserism, though rejecting the racial theories of the Hitlerites, manifested anti-Semitism in the form of “economic anti-Semitism.” The anti-Jewish sentiment of the Strasserites was based on the idea that the Jewish people were inherently bourgeois and financial elites who were the cause of the economic crisis that shocked Germany and the capitalist world in general. According to Gregor Strasser himself:

“Down with the slavery of capitalism! Down with bloodsucking international world finance! Down with their leaders, their spokesmen, their henchmen: nationally-poisonous Judaism! [Our emphasis—Ed.] Long live the National Revolution! Long live the Social Revolution! Long live their common goal: The common front of productive national labor as the community of all productive German folk-comrades, united in the coming, salvation-bringing National Socialist state.” ^[3]

It is clear from this quote that the Strasserites believed that the Jewish people were a financial elite that were by their nature a parasitic class. This idea of Jewish elitism “pulling the strings of society” is not new and has its origins in the myth that the Jewish people as a collective killed Jesus Christ. Today, even MAGA Communist leaders such as Jackson Hinkle echo these scapegoating views. In the tweet shown below, while criticizing the Israeli government for its war crimes, he could not help but take a jab at Jews, which is obvious to deduce given that Zionism did not exist at the time of Jesus Christ.

Though these elements claim to pursue a socialist end, it could never come to fruition with their base among the dying petty-bourgeois class. As Karl Marx clearly stated in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

“In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange, within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.”^[4]

In essence, Marx shows that the petty bourgeoisie, being an appendage of the bourgeoisie, can only serve ends that restore capitalist property relations. For this reason, and for the reason that the petty bourgeoisie is a class that is condemned to vanish as contradictions in capitalism sharpen, Strasserism and MAGA Communism can only serve the interests of the big bourgeoisie, in this case the most reactionary elements of finance capital, i.e., fascism. This is seen in the example of the Nazi Party, which started as a grouping of disgruntled elements and later served as a vehicle for the Monopolists and a hotbed for their reactionary methods.

Lyndon LaRouche: Ideological Father of MAGA Communism

The MAGA Communist movement from its inception has worked closely with followers of Lyndon LaRouche and its Schiller Institute organization, despite LaRouche’s history of blatant anti-communism.

Jackson Hinkle, MAGA Communist leader, spoke at the Schiller Institute Conference in October of 2022, where he stated:

“Lyndon LaRouche, for those of you who don’t know him, was a great visionary, ran for President, a great thinker … He was involved in many presidential administrations, both Democratic and Republican, in advising them on complex foreign policy matters. He envisioned a world in which … we would, as humans, tap into our unlimited potentiality for growth, and creativity, and build a brighter future by working with the economic powerhouses of the world, the commodities producers of the world, to produce a more prosperous environment for all.”^[5]

Furthermore, Haz Al-Din of Infrared has stated that he considers LaRouche to be “one of the most, if not the most, profound theorist and thinker [sic] of policy in the modern age.”

These are strange views indeed from people who claim to be Communists, given the views which were brought forth by LaRouche and the history of his organization and its activities.

LaRouche began his political life as a Trotskyite, joining the Socialist Workers Party in 1948. Later, he briefly joined the Spartacist League (another Trotskyite organization) before announcing his intention to build a “Fifth International.”

In the 1970s, LaRouche organized the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). This group was initially closely associated with the New Left – and thus petty-bourgeois radical – Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). After being expelled by the SDS, the NCLC abandoned any pretense of Marxism-Leninism and quickly became explicitly anti-Communist and anti-Soviet.

The NCLC was, beyond being just a political organization; it was a cult, where members gave up their jobs to devote themselves totally to the cause. They believed that the NCLC would imminently take over the trade union movement and from there proceed to overthrow the American government.

The NCLC membership’s cultish devotion to LaRouche soon manifested in physical violence against their opposition. This began with fights that broke out against Mark Rudd’s faction of Students for a Democratic Society, and later culminated in the infamous “Operation Mop-Up.” Operation Mop-Up was an attack intended to dispose of the “stinking corpse” of the Communist Party USA, whereby Jewish members of the CPUSA were targeted and physically assaulted with lead pipes wrapped in newspapers by members of the NCLC. This act highlights the anti-Semitism which is present within both the LaRouche movement and within MAGA Communism as a whole.

In addition to these acts of physical violence, LaRouche also endorsed “psywar techniques” to be used against his detractors and opponents on the Left. It was a common tactic for targets to be accused of homosexuality in an attempt to ruin their reputation. This is reflected in the chauvinism and homophobia of the modern MAGA Communist movement, which tails many of the most reactionary views against LGBT+ liberation found today.

After the failure of the NCLC, the LaRouche movement formed a front group called the US Labor Party as a platform for La-Rouche’s Presidential ambitions. LaRouche’s characteristic cult methods continued, and even intensified, in this formation. Members were subject to “ego-stripping” and brainwashing sessions, and they were made to place their savings and possessions in the hands of the party to increase its control over them. While the US Labor Party initially preached “Marxist revolution”, it quickly shifted to the far-right, rubbing shoulders with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the rightist Liberty Lobby. The Liberty Lobby defended the US Labor Party on the basis that it had “confused, disoriented, and disunified the Left,” just as the MAGA Communist movement stands to do today.

Later, in the 1980s, the Schiller Institute formed in West Germany to spread LaRouche’s ideology even further. The Schiller Institute continued LaRouche’s anti-Sovietism, going so far as to accuse the 1984 Democratic Party presidential candidate Walter Mondale of being a “Soviet agent.” The Schiller Institute also supported Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (often called the “Star Wars program”), which sought to develop laser weapons to be deployed to space to further pressure the Soviet Union, in addition to the nuclear arms race which was instigated by the United States government.

LaRouche would later claim to have invented the Strategic Defense Initiative, and this was extended to his so-called “Biological Strategic Defense Initiative”, whereby he proposed quarantining people who had been infected by HIV in the 1980s. LaRouche’s unscientific claim that HIV could be spread as easily as the common cold was a thinly veiled pretext for the rampant homophobia expressed by his initiative.

Today, the Schiller Institute is alive and well, having recently ran Diane Sare as their candidate for New York Senator in 2024. MAGA Communist figures like Jackson Hinkle continue their association and praise of the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche movement to the present day.

The history of the LaRouche movement is marked by chauvinism, anti-Semitism, anti-environmentalism, and anti-Communism. The fact that the leaders of the MAGA Communist movement have given such praise to LaRouche and the Schiller Institute should be taken as a warning to the true nature of their ideology.

Strange Bed-Fellows: Alexander Dugin and MAGA Communism

In addition to their idolization of LaRouche, leaders of the MAGA Communist movement have also identified themselves as followers of Alexander Dugin, supporter of the Russian Tsarist monarchy who endorsed the anti-Communist propaganda of Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Again, an examination of Dugin’s thought, as stated in his own words, will be enlightening as to the actual ideology of the MAGA Communists.

The Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin claims “there is no difference between capitalism, socialism, or communism”. All require rules and regulations that can run over “traditional values” in their wake. “The way out of this dilemma is to achieve freedom. But not a freedom confined to one set of rules and regulations or constitutions.”

Dugin considers liberalism a culprit in the degradation of current social forces by “repudiating practically all social political institutions, right up to the family and sexual differentiation”. Another culprit is the “theory of progress” that “has caused the loss of traditional values sacrificed on the altar of progress, and thereby have just created another form of social and economic slavery”. This shows that the MAGA Communists  are an American branch of Dugin’s reactionary thinking.

The MAGA Communists also consistently preach of social conservatism^[6], similar to this passage from Dugin himself:

“We must also abandon the philosophy of development and propose the following slogan: life is more important than growth. Instead of the ideology of development, we must place our bets on the ideology of conservatism and conservation. However, we not only require conservatism in our daily lives, but also philosophical conservatism. We need the philosophy of conservatism.”[7]

Haz Al-Din has openly praised Dugin as “one of the most powerful minds of our era,”^[8] going as far as saying that “Marxist theory in the West is meaningless without the aid of Dugin and Heidegger’s [a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party] thinking.”^[9] The same Dugin whose goal is to remove materialism from Socialism:

“If we free socialism from its materialist, atheistic and modernist features, we arrive at a completely new kind of political ideology. We call it the Fourth Political Theory, or 4PT. …”[10]

Dugin continues with his anti-Communism with:

“… (The first being liberalism, that we essentially challenge, the second being the classical form of communism, the third being national-socialism and fascism). Its elaboration starts from the point of intersection between different anti-liberal political theories of the past (namely communism and the Third way theories). So we arrive at the national-bolshevism that represents socialism without materialism, atheism, progressivism, and Modernism …”[11]

MAGA Communists have thus far focused their attacks on liberalism and other progressive movements including the LGBT+ movement, Starbucks union organizing, and others. Given their parallels to Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory, we wonder who they’re going to attack next.

Alexander Dugin concluded with, “I sincerely believe that the Fourth Political Theory, and its secondary variations, National Bolshevism and Eurasianism, can be of great use for our peoples, our countries, and our civilizations.” This would be in line with the common thread among MAGA Communists who largely are active in support of the non-Soviet Russophile movement based in the concept of Eurasianism.^[12]

Though Dugin claims to transcend all other political ideologies, Lenin made it clear that:

“Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is — either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a ‘third’ ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or an above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology.”[13]

MAGA Communism: Center of Social Chauvinism

Leadership of the movement such as Haz and Hinkle, along with their followers, are very anti-LGBT. They justify their bigotry by claiming that acceptance of LGBT people is a sign of “western bourgeois decadence” and compatible with fascism. They ignore socialist countries which have pro-LGBT policies, such as Cuba, Vietnam and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Instead, they focus on instances of LGBT people being repressed in socialist countries. For instance, Hinkle posted a video of a Chinese police officer berating a man for wearing a skirt with the caption “China is a moral nation.”[14]

Women are hardly represented in the MAGA Communist movement, apart from the “Hegelian e-girls,” who could hardly be considered followers of socialism as they tout Hegel, not Marx. Prominent figures of MAGA Communism do not advocate for the rights of working women. Instead, they push a regressive position on the traditional role of the woman as a homemaker and child bearer. They obsess over masculinity and speak as guests on podcasts of right-wing figures who tout misogyny to promote “traditional masculinity” (such as Fresh and Fit, mentioned above).

The movement is led by overtly anti-Semitic individuals. Many claim to be pro-Palestine, though they focus less on the Palestinian liberation movement and more on directing hatred towards Israel and Jewish people. Online posts in these circles about the topic of Israel have anti-Semitic dog whistles. One such dog whistle is the “clown world” conspiracy theory, claiming that the government (or the world) is run by Jewish people. They spout the rhetoric of the Catholic church, that “Jews killed Christ.”

All of this is MAGA Communism, a movement that is left in form, right in essence. MAGA Communism furthermore appears to have, as Comrade Gus Hall would say, a “whiff of fascism”, and while Communist Parties worldwide shout “Workers and Oppressed people of the World Unite”, MAGA Communists are petty-bourgeois radicals who through an opportunistic approach to organization confuse the working class and disarm them against fascism. We see that MAGA Communism has many similarities with right-wing, even fascist, forces while using revolutionary phrase-mongering. Time will tell if such “Communist” demagogues will fall into the “Graveyard of [so-called] Communist groups” splattered across the landscape.

[1] https://youtu.be/iww_kD6ZQhA?t=3314

[2] Strasser, Otto, Germany Tomorrow; Jonathan Cape: London, 1940, p. 139.

[3] Strasser, Gregor, “The Slave-Market of Capitalism”. August 23, 1926.

[4] Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick, The Communist Manifesto; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2022, p. 41.

[5]https://larouchepub.com/pr/2022/20221102_hinkle.html

[6] https://x.com/InfraHaz/status/1495363547240538118

[7] Dugin, Alexander, The Fourth Political Theory; The Eurasian Movement: Moscow, 2012, p. 62.

[8] https://x.com/InfraHaz/status/1766211760770429035. (See Image 3)

[9] https://x.com/InfraHaz/status/1672279455732215809. (See Image 4)

[10] Ibid., p. 205.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Eurasianism — is a socio-political movement in Russia that emerged in the early 20^th century under the Russian Empire, it states that Russia does not belong in the “European” or “Asian” categories but instead to the geopolitical concept of Eurasia and the “Russian world”, forming an ostensibly standalone Russian civilization. The goal of the Eurasianists was the unification of the main Christian churches under the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.

[13] Lenin, V.I., What is to Be Done?; New Outlook Publishers: Seattle, 2023, pp. 51-52.

[14] https://x.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1842506425639297315.

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The presidential election show, which the ruling regime of Iran was eagerly hoping to turn into a grand endorsement of the theocratic regime, ended with the majority of the nation boycotting it. Even according to the official statistics, in several major cities, including the capital Tehran, voter turnout barely exceeded 30%. According to ISNA, the head of the election office in Tehran province said: “The number of eligible voters for the fourteenth presidential election was 10,199,742, and in this election, on June 25^th, 3,366,264 ballots were used in the capital.”

It was clear that the continued stark economic and social crisis, which could bring the society to the brink of another widespread nation-wide protest like the “Woman, Life, Freedom” popular uprising or other successive protests like the ones in the past two years, could seriously challenge the regime’s survival. That’s why the leaders of the regime were deeply worried about the fate of their rule and the serious difficulties they face in maintaining their power. The ongoing regional developments, including the risk of direct and disastrous conflict with the racist and criminal state of Israel and the US imperialism, must be added to the rulers’ concerns to highlight the depth of the crisis the regime is facing with, which is caused by its own irrational and adventurous policies.

With the unexpected and ambiguous death of Ebrahim Raisi, a member of the death commission responsible for the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, the regime saw an opportunity to rearrange its guards and divert the popular movement towards the illusion of “reformability” of the regime. They intended to create a safety valve to calm the society and quell the growing anger of the masses.

The qualification of Masoud Pezeshkian (who had been disqualified in two previous presidential elections and the most recent parliamentary election) was organized and directly ordered by the Supreme Leader. This move was intended to bring state-affiliated reformists into the scene to create illusions about Masoud Pezeshkian and generate false hope for a “window” of change, similar to what was tested during Hassan Rouhani’s election campaign. Additionally, extensive propaganda and fear-mongering about the possibility of Jalili’s “election” and worsening the situation in the country was part of a precise and organized campaign to encourage the people to vote and to create a made-up “heroic” act and portray it as an endorsement for the regime’s popularity, approval, and the illusion of freedom in the tyranny-ridden country.

Mr. Khatami, who understanding the deep anger and hatred of the people towards the opportunistic regime had refrained from participating in the parliamentary election show months earlier, returned to the scene this time to repeat and promote the illusion of the “election window.” Of course, people have not forgotten that Mr. Khatami once said: “If the reformists or some of them are to be sidelined, public and global opinion won’t matter. What is important is that those who they don’t want should not come in, and I am sure they don’t want us to come in. Even if we pass this stage, we are not allowed to win more votes than they want.” And ironically, Masoud Pezeshkian, who in his previous speeches emphasized being a “servant of the Supreme Leadership” and having no authority to make fundamental changes in many areas, in his first speech after the election, confirming Khatami’s assessment of the “election” process in the Islamic Republic, said: “I thank the Leader, because without him, our names would have not easily come out of these ballot boxes.” Ali Khamenei also reminded Pezeshkian, after the election results were announced, that he must continue Raisi’s course.

Creating Illusions about Pezeshkian’s Government to Calm the Situation, and the Tasks of the Popular Movement

The government of Masoud Pezeshkian, whose key members will be vetted by Ali Khamenei, and whose major economic policies will be dictated by the Supreme Leader’s office to his government and other legislative and executive structures, will have two key missions. First, to calm the severely crisis-ridden country and create the illusion that the regime has chosen the course of reform. Hence, preventing another social explosion, which this time could involve the powerful presence of the labour and working-class movement and could create insurmountable difficulties for the regime. Second, to resume secret negotiations with the US and the European Union, who all implicitly expressed hope for his election to improve mutual relations with Iran.

The experience of Hassan Rouhani’s two terms in power, supported by the state-affiliated reformists, followed a similar pattern. Contrary to Rouhani’s campaign promises, the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi did not end, prisoners of conscience and political prisoners were not freed, the brutal suppression of women’s rights was not prevented, and the demands of the workers and the working class were ignored. The economic crisis continued, the gap between poverty and wealth widened, widespread government corruption persisted and increased, and the bloody and brutal suppression of any mass protest, including in 2017 and 2019, continued. At the end of his term, Rouhani admitted that he had little authority and was merely an executor of the orders of the Supreme Leader, IRGC, and the security forces.

The Tudeh Party of Iran believes that aside from a small minority who participated in this “election” and voted for Jalili, the overwhelming majority of the nation, including those who voted for Masoud Pezeshkian with the hope of a “window” for change, strive for fundamental changes in the catastrophic current state of the country and moving towards establishing the people’s will over the affairs. The overwhelming majority of the nation, especially workers and the working class, who have been increasingly pushed below the line of poverty, want a relief from crushing economic pressures, suitable wages compatible with the inflation, an end to the extensive neoliberal privatization policies and workforce downsizing, the restoration of the country’s productive infrastructure, an end to the brutal and inhuman assault on women by the regime’s thugs, freedom of political-ideological prisoners, and an opening of the political atmosphere in the country. It is clear that none of these demands can be achieved within the theocratic regime and the current despotic and anti-people political system. The developments of recent decades have shown that only through massive and organized social struggle can the regime be forced to retreat. The recent historical development in France, where a broad spectrum of progressive forces from communists and socialists to greens united to prevent the victory of right-wing fascist-leaning forces, is a clear and proven sign of the power of organized and united action of progressive and freedom-loving forces, which can be noted for Iran.

Once again, we call on all patriotic and freedom-loving forces in the country to collaborate and prepare for a national dialogue to organize the frustrated masses and seriously challenge the anti-people ruling regime. Without joint efforts and organized struggle to bring about fundamental and lasting changes, the Islamic Republic, as it has shown in recent years, will continue its dreadful life, harming our country through various manoeuvres and changes in its guards.

The Tudeh Party of Iran

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