The way I see it: as the rate of profit falls, these groups are proletarianized as finance and monopoly capital tries to pad their margins to compensate. As material conditions change, so do class interests and relationships.
The importance of class relationships under particular material conditions is exemplified by the PRC’s flag: 5 stars. 4 for the peasantry, proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and national bourgeoisie. One large star for the Communist Party that united them.
I don’t mean “idealist” as an arbitrary pejorative. I’m talking about idealism vs materialism as a way of understanding and changing the world. I’m not sure how far along you are in your journey as a Marxist - are you familiar with historical and dialectical materialism?
Do you live in the Imperial Core? I know you have “commie” in your username - do you consider yourself a Marxist?
Your question was about the feisability of mass moments. Mass movements coalesce due to material interests, are made possible through class consciousness, and are fueled by the blood and sweat of the people willing to put in the work to fight for unity.
I don’t know if “these people” you speak of are the reactionaries or absolutely everyone in the Imperial Core, but idealist notions of “paying for your sins” aren’t what make these movements happen.
To build unity of the working class. Yes, yes, lots of Democrats and liberalism amongst organizers. But these protests are comprised of workers who’s class consciousness is growing. Spread literature, invite workers to your org’s events, make connections with other orgs; build a united fighting working class.
Moreover, yes, the Democratic Party has shown time and again that they are willing and eager to use the full, repressive force of state terror on the left. The numerous links between the military, the police, the intelligence apparatus and the genocidal regime in Israel are exactly the fascism coming home from the frontier and it is happening under the merely class collaborationist Democrats
Agreed. I’m not arguing that electing democrats stops fascism. The Democratic Party is complicit in the rise of fascism. What I am arguing, is blocking a Trump presidency as the resolution proposed helps mitigate an existential threat to building a revolution, an all powerful unitary executive, and an increasingly radical right-wing legislature that dismantles civil rights.
And it doesn’t and shouldn’t be done through a public advocation for the Democratic Party. For example, engaging in something like voter registration canvassing, and advocating for pro-worker ballot proposals, diminishes the likelihood of a Trump presidency, and more importantly, builds connections with other groups and the workers themselves.
It is a failure of solidarity to ally, even tactically, with a genocidal regime, simply on the assumption that domestic conditions will be better for organizing.
Not an assumption, an observation that fits a historical pattern. And not just organizing - it is existential. The president now being legally completely above the law will only embolden capital, and the consolidation and expansion of the executive’s powers will make it all the easier to escalate suppression against us and our comrades.
But, those are my thoughts as to the positives of such a resolution. It didn’t pass, and if the National Committee does pass a revised version, I’ll be very interested to see the changes.
I fail to see the distinction, particularly, when the Democratic Party is in full support of the genocide in Gaza.
It is oft said that “fascism is imperialism turned inwards,” no? Again, it is a material difference of the conditions in which we mobilize the masses and build a revolution.
The Communist Party of Poland also didn’t see the difference, they saw Pilsudiki’s coup of 1926 as a simple bourgeois vs bourgeois conflict. When the new regime curtailed the powers of parliament, and pursued policies of censorship and suppression of leftist activities, the party changed its tune. But it was far too late - the ability to mobilize and communicate had been crushed.
Are we equating the Democratic Party with social democracy now?
Well, in pre-1935 Europe it was indeed the Social Democrats. But in terms of this specific function, the difference between the material conditions under a class-collaborationist party and an outright fascist party, yes I think the comparison is apt.
Your party has a god-awful reputation
Definitely true in some digital circles like Hexbear. This hasn’t been my experience on the ground, however.
stuff like this looks disgustingly unprincipled on its face
It seems to me that, in cases like this, the discussions are initially framed from either a place of misunderstanding or malintent. It’s a pretty fundamental fact that this resolution was not passed.
I ask again however, as I did elsewhere in this thread, who exactly is in this “People’s Front” against fascism aside from CPUSA itself?
We define a “People’s Front” or “Popular Front” as an alliance on specific issues, and the alliance is not necessarily based on class character. This is opposed to a “United Front,” which is a more stable and permanent coalition of united working class orgs. It can be other communists, labor activists, liberals, Democrats, and other progressive groups.
Locally we have worked with progressive democrats, student orgs, housing activists, and even Catholic orgs on things like specific housing issues (e.g. property millage for funding local housing insecurity services) and forcing our city and county officials to call for a ceasefire in Palestine.
If we committed to blocking a Trump presidency, it should be a strategic one off, not subordination to a party that enforces the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Finally, we do not see the Democratic Party as a fascist organization. We define fascism using the comintern’s definition as presented by Georgi Dmitrov: “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.
This is not an excuse for the imperialist, settler-colonial, bourgeois-subservient Democratic Party, but there is a material difference between fascism and neoliberal orthodoxy. The conditions for organizing the masses becomes much more difficult when there is a ramp up in censorship, imprisonment, and outright executions of communists. This philosophy of “Social Fascism,” where modern social democracy and fascism are equated, in part caused the communists to remove themselves from the masses and underestimate fascism. It led to a failure to prevent fascism in Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, and Germany pre-1935, hence the comintern’s analysis.
Re: “calling Russia military operation in Ukraine illegal”
You’re right, a part of the party’s position is that it was wrong and in violation of International Law. The suffering of the working class has escalated as a consequence of the war.
But this alone would be a surface level analysis. The party recognizes:
Thus, our “main task has to be to work to develop a peace movement and to change the Biden administration’s policy. That’s the best way and only way to support the workers of Russia and Ukraine.” Not idealistically decry Russia’s actions and do nothing, despite US-imperialism creating the situation in the first place. That is the core of our position, that which informs our priorities and our actions.
No. Many other districts (and by proxy, clubs) also dissented over resolution 5. Not only was there no “reprisal,” but we have been asked for feedback on it.
We have not, however, broken democratic centralism.
This is resolution 5, which did not pass at the National Convention, nor has a version of it yet passed from the National Committee. A big part of the disagreement was the lack of mention of the Democratic party and its role in allowing our descent into fascism.
I largely agree with the resolution, but it is a fine line that has to be walked between building a People’s Front against fascism, and subordination and class collaboration.
Do what I can to help out the local encampment calling for university divestment from Israel
The exact same thing about LOTR was repeated in the media ad nauseum in 2003 re: Bush’s axis of evil (North Korea, Iran, and Iraq if memory serves). I see it less as libs moving on and more the media using pieces of fiction that are convenient for their narratives.
Also the deficit is a myth and that’s not how modern monetary theory works.
I strongly disagree with the comments claiming an “AGI” isn’t possible in the near future, but the premise is silly. The assertion that having additional “general intelligences” will somehow magically mean global domination is baseless.
You don’t need to run a candidate for president to gain popular support. And the candidate will never be the center of the revolution - that’s “Great Man Theory” talking.
Revolution happens through popular support of the workers. Building and growing a coalition of working class orgs is where we should be putting in our efforts.
our current outlook on science which is metaphysical.
Metaphysics, coming from the Greek words for “the things after physics,” is something that by its etymology is literally outside of science. To understand where you’re coming from, you’ll need to elaborate on how you’re defining “metaphysics” and how your conception of “science in general” is based in it.
By which I don’t mean the scientific method… but science as a whole and as itself.
There is no disentangling the scientific method from the term and our conception of “science.” It is the cornerstone of the philosophy, and is inherently dialectical by its nature: it is a process by which a falsifiable (hypo)thesis is pitted against its antitheses through experiment and observation. The synthesis is a new, revised thesis that is again pitted against its antitheses in iteration. Its fruits are a testament to power of dialectics.
As others have noted, bourgeois decision making regarding the application of science does not tend to use dialectical analysis, but that is not unique to “science,” and I’m not convinced that the decision making of the bourgeoisie is “metaphysical” in any essential way.
I’m reflecting on how much value has been extracted from me. If I had been able to keep the yearly insurance payments, I could have bought the car all over again.
Over the past 7 years I’ve paid my car’s initial worth in insurance payments, it’s great.
Intelligentsia maintain a portion of the means of reproduction of society. Scholars, professors, researchers and the like. It’s important that bourgeois ideas and constructs are reproduced and reinforced to uphold capitalism, and their work requires a higher level of skill. Thus, they are historically better compensated and enjoy a higher level of privilege. Still generally workers - they don’t own the means of production.
The petite bourgeoisie on the other hand do own the means of production, and do exploit labor to make profit, but operate at a smaller scale than the large bourgeoisie and their labor remains essential to their operations. Small businesses and the like.
Both groups, along with highly technically skilled workers (labor aristocracy) have similar interests in that they have more to benefit from collaboration with large bourgeoisie and imperialist forces than most workers do. This isn’t a constant, however, as the contradictions of capitalism sharpen.