The Dangerous Nursery Tale of MAGA Communism
and a Personal Experience with a MAGA-like Party Here in NYC
The Dangerous “Nursery Tale” of MAGA Communism
It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism …--Marx and Engels. The Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848.
The concept of “MAGA Communism” has been advocated by Thomas Fazi,[1] former lieutenant of Caleb Maupin, former leader of the “Marxist-Leninist” (Stalinist) Center for Political Innovation (CPI). He has done so, in the pretentious tones of a college sophomore, by claiming that “MAGA Communism” has the same “spectral”--i.e., scary to the capitalist class--qualities that Communism in 1848 in Europe. So we all better jump on the bandwagon. Our approach to the MAGA movement should be to join it, to enter it. Because otherwise, presumably, (and bizarrely) we’re not Communists. We’re unenlightened, because not part of this senseless new fad.
He’s onto something, but he’s using the wrong term. For MAGA Communism is not really a Spectre that haunts the bourgeoisie today. In fact it is another Spectacle, as DeBord described, by which the Bourgeoisie can divert the socialist or progressive intelligentsia into just another harmless[2] Popular Front: an alliance with classes other and higher in the socio-economic hierarchy of capitalism, in which, of course, those classes higher on the totem pole, rather than the working class, call the shots.
The first principle of any Stalinist, is counterpoised to that of Marx and Engels themselves, and to their twentieth century adherents: Lenin and Trotsky. The latter upheld as a goal the building of working class unity and spiritual, ideological, and political independence from the bourgeoisie. The former, however, suffer from the same malady of opportunism which Trotsky, glossing on a letter written by Lasalle, critiqued in the camp of the reformists in his own time. They simply “don’t know how to wait”--wait for the slow, molecular process by which the working class, under the pressure of economic crisis, imperial war, etc., opens up to its potential to be educated to socialism by the Party: comprised of principled, disciplined socialist intellectuals, and the socialist-intellectually advanced layer of the workers themselves.[3]
So instead, these opportunists, historically, desperately, and futilely, thrash about for any possibility of a partnership, a “Popular Front,” with some purported, still “progressive” fraction of the capitalist class, or of the petit bourgeoisie, for the…anti-capitalist struggle.
Fazi argues that the MAGA movement, all by itself, is a working class movement. But this is just legerdemain, to disguise the Popular Front with the reactionary elements of the petit bourgeoisie, and of the capitalist class, that he is in effect proposing. MAGA Communism is a particularly heinous, dangerous form of the Popular Front: the Red-Brown Alliance: an alliance proposed between the working class and the right wing, nationalistic, pro-capitalist, pro-law and order, anti-immigrant, small business and high tech petit bourgeoisie--fascists. But Fazi sweeps all this under the rug, with his fatuous claim that the MAGA movement is based upon the working class. In truth, while there are workers who have been fooled by Trump and co. into supporting MAGA, it is the right wing capitalists and petty capitalists who provide the leadership of MAGA. Any genuine commmunist rejects partnership with these elements, and instead, tries to tear the workers away from them.
As a medical freedom activist, I will be the last to argue that there is nothing positive to be found in the MAGA movement. Despite leader Trump’s support for the disastrous “warp speed” policy that has been the basis for the development of these dangerous “Covid-19 vaccines”, it is today far easier to find supporters of Medical Freedom, and opponent’s to the WEF’s, Gates’, Fauci’s, and Biden’s medical fascism, in this movement, rather than within the Democratic Party camp (where such a search will usually yield no defenders of medical freedom).[4] We certainly do need a strategy for reaching out to these medical freedom defenders--particularly, the working class elements.
But far from being an asset in the struggle for working class liberation and socialism, this “MAGA Communist” strategy of entry is a dangerous one. Firstly, it grants greater ammunition for assertions by pro-mandate Democrats and Socialists that the medical freedom movement, just because it is supported in the main these days by Republicans, is inherently “fascist”.
Of course, this is demagogic nonsense. But we anti-mandate communists certainly do not need to give these neo-liberal, pro-mandate demagogues more ammunition by actually entering into the Red Brown alliance they claim we are promoting, merely by defending medical freedom!
Secondly, and much more importantly, this MAGA Communist entry strategy presents the very real threat that Communists, instead of using their entry into the MAGA movement as a means of raising the working class members of this movement to socialist consciousness, will themselves increasingly lose their own socialist consciousness, and liquidate into the right wing ideology of the MAGA movement. Because of the authoritarianism inherent in the cult of “Marxist-Leninism,” Stalinists are particularly vulnerable to such liquidation.
I would like to relate my personal experience with the liquidation of progressive Greens--some of whom I suspect are former Stalinists--into a MAGA, or MAGA-like, party: the New York City Medical Freedom Party.
This “Party” is the self-proclaimed “political division” of something called the New York Medical Freedom Alliance, a group that meets weekly at the Manhattan Republican Club. Its founder and leader runs his own personal trainer business. He is from all appearances a Christian, conservative libertarian. He starts every meeting (which he personally chairs) by invoking “our” affinity for the Constitution, the family, religion, and for law and order. And he and other leaders in this Alliance make it a habit of denouncing Centrist liberals like AOC as “Marxists”, bent on totalitarianism.
The Medical Freedom Party is run by a pro-capitalist friend (some might say “crony) of this MFA Founder-Leader. This Party Founder-Leader is a very capable Campaign Manager--who, on that basis, arrogates to himself publicly the putative right to make all the decisions for that Party. As is contiguous with his Silicon Valley managerial background, and in sympathy with the Social Darwinist ideology expressed by Andrew Carnegie in his essay, “Wealth”, he treats this Party as if he is its Owner--because he is its Founder, and because he, like Carnigie, does most of the managerial and marketing work, for which he is rarely and wondrously suited. And if you don’t like the fact that he is presenting himself as an autocrat, he will tell you--as he told me--”Get your own Party”!
Friends of mine, and even other, conservative, MFA members, who have attended meetings, or MFP fundraisers, where he has spoken--domineeringly, “interminably”, and with constant interruptions of other speakers, have described him as “a piece of work”, an “extreme, right wing individualist” and a “totalitarian.”
Via a private email to this Founder Leader,, I simply questioned this autocratic state of affairs, and proposed that a Steering Committee be elected. Over the summer of 2022, I had put many hours, as many as I could, into getting signatures to put four potential MFP candidates on the ballot, and thus, naturally, expected that I should be granted, along with everyone else in the MFA, some say in the affairs of the MFA’s “political division” I was also becoming more and more aware that something was very lacking in the whole process of formulating the Party’s ideas, program, and platform. The only issue raised by any of the candidates was simply that of freedom from these vaccine mandates. And this disturbed me. For you see that, as a socialist, I believe that the only way to fight for medical freedom, is to pose to the masses additional demands and a program that intersects with their basic existential needs, such as affordable and livable housing, holistic and free healthcare for all, reduced hours and liveable wages, etc. etc.[5] And so I also recommended that we form a Platform Committee, to discuss these issues. I never insisted that such demands be immediately inserted into the Party’s Platform. I merely insisted that I be given the right, along with everybody else (guru or not!) to discuss these matters.
It was then that the Party Leader told me I should “Get my own Party.” He also told me that I should just “don’t think about it so much” (i.e., just take orders from him, without question).
For you see, he and the other conservative libertarian guru leading the MFA, have an agenda, and that agenda is to shut down any discussion which might lead to anti-capitalist conclusions, and thus, demands, and thus, working class socialist ideology. Let these two schmucks make all the decisions, chair all the meetings, brand anyone to the left of Trump as a “Marxist”, etc.--and the subject of socialism need never come up. Everybody else but us, want to present your ideas and really get a hearing for them, if you disagree with our conservatism?!--”Shut up!!!”
At that point I appealed for support to two Greens in the MFA. I thought these Greens were my friends, since I had been very friendly with them, and offered my support in getting ballot signatures for one of them in particular. I thought, naturally enough, that they would back me up, especially given the fact that the First Pillar of Green Values is that of Grassroots Democracy.
Neither of them did. The one I worked to get ballot signatures for, was particularly nasty, diminishing my motives, my intelligence, and my efforts on her behalf. She used as justification the fact that she is no longer with the Greens, because, out of a rightful disgust with the national Green leadership’s current pro-war, pro-mandate stance, she is no longer a registered Green. This entitles her, in her own mind, to piss on the Green Values, in the name of an anti-democratic cliquism, which she describes, scarily, as a “brotherhood of the trenches”.
The other told the Party leader that while she completely disagreed with his right wing politics, she was so enamored with his success at building up the Party that she was fully accepting of his right to rule as the Party Autocrat.
I guess I should not have been surprised at this. Earlier, I heard her tell this Party leader that she had appointed herself both the “President and Vice-President” of his “fan club.”[6]
What she completely missed is the absolute incongruity between such gushing, uncritical hero-worship, and any pretense of progressive politics. Raising consciousness, fighting for freedom, liberation and progress, is not a gift granted from on high by some self-important, all knowing Duce! As the great American socialist Eugene Debs once said,
I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.
The liberatory process unfolds via democratic discussion, debate, and voting--a dialectical process that must include the unfolding of freedom and consciousness of everyone in a socialist group or Party.
Demoralized by the betrayals of the national Green leadership, and rightly terrified of the WEF “Great Reset” agenda (if anyone is not terrified of it, you ought to be!), these Greens are in reality no longer Greens. The MFA/P itself, for them, has become The Boulevard of Broken Greens, and a resort for Middle-to-Elderly-Aged Greens to relive their junior high school days when they were, or wanted to be, the cheerleaders and the jocks, part of the “in-crowd,” against the out-crowd of critically minded nerds, non-conformists, and nay-sayers (like myself).
I believe that we can generalize this personal, local experience of mine, to MAGA Communism itself. This is what’s going to happen to any such entry efforts--demoralization and liquidation--unless we take an alternate approach to the MAGA movement.
This approach, again, was put forward successfully by Lenin and Trotsky, and the early Comintern. It is the strategy, not of entry and liquidation, but instead of the united front. The united front is not a sophomoric trend, but instead, a strategy for unifying the workers under a socialist banner, that has proven successful, time and time again. Early on, it was the key to the success of the Bolsheviks in gaining a majority within the Soviets, as the basis for the revolutionary seizure of power in October 1917: stealing the workers away, if you will, from the reformist parties--the Mensheviks, and the Right Social Revolutionaries.
The slogan of the united front is that of “March Separately, Strike Together.”
This strategy entails, first and foremost, the independence of the working class revolutionary socialist party from the party(ies) of the capitalists and petit bourgeoisie, as well as from the reformist “socialist” parties (March Separately!). The working class party offers to partner up--but on a strictly temporary basis--with those reformist workers parties, for the sake of economic and political, and then general strikes, as well as workers defense against fascists, via united workers’ militias (Strike Together!).
Whatever the response of the reformist leaders, the goal of raising the consciousness of their members, is still served. If the leaders refuse joint actions with the revolutionary workers party, the reformist party’s workers will ask, “why not”--and these leaders will lose legitimacy, and the revolutionary party can recruit them.
If instead the reformist leaders go for joint actions, this provides the revolutionary workers a golden opportunity to propagandize the reformist party’s workers, fraternize with them--and again, win them over.
Now, MAGA parties like the MFP are not by any stretch of the imagination even a reformist workers party. But a similar strategy should be adapted to these conditions. Instead of entering the MAGA party, what we need to do, first, is to build up our own revolutionary workers, eco-socialist party, and raise, alongside the demand for medical freedom, other transitional demands (for the demand for medical freedom is itself a transitional demand!) that intersect with the consciousness of the working masses, including the working class elements inside the MAGA party itself. This will turn their heads. They will demand of their own MAGA leaders, the same Platform--and of course encounter resistance. Which will allow us to tear them away from these MAGA-ites, and recruit them to our, genuinely communist, democratic, politics.
That’s the key to our success in fighting for socialism, and fighting off the Great Reset.
MAGA Communism
Thomas Fazi, September 22, 2022[1]
A specter is haunting American politics--the specter of #MAGACommunism. In recent weeks, the hashtag has trended on Twitter, leaving most observers baffled: What in God’s name could Donald Trump’s movement ever have in common with communism? Is this a sarcastic take on America’s surreal politics?
Much of its appeal comes from its [2] irreverent combination of seeming opposites. The memes that have proliferated under the hashtag—such as one showing Trump holding Mao’s Little Red Book—have a [3] ludic quality[4] recalling the spirit of the Trump 2016 campaign. But MAGA communism isn’t a mere joke. Indeed, some powerful actors in American society are taking it seriously, as shown by Google’s decision to affix a warning to search results related to the hashtag.
It’s unclear exactly who coined the hashtag, but it was popularized by Haz Al-Din, the brain behind Infrared, a self-described [5] Marxist-Leninist YouTube channel—and beginning in early September, it spread on Twitter, in large part thanks to Jackson Hinkle, a popular communist commentator.
Al-Din is a gifted speaker—or “debate bro,” in the parlance of [6] internet politics—who is capable of discussing heavyweight political theory in an informal, jocular manner. It’s enough to listen to one of his videos, or to read one of his dense Substack posts, to realize that Al-Din is dead serious about #MAGACommunism—that is, about the notion, which most people would find preposterous, that communists in America should [7] [8] support the MAGA movement.
The premise of Al-Din’s argument is that Trump fundamentally and irreversibly changed American politics—f[9] or the better, if one believes in class struggle. Before 2016, the political landscape in the United States was confined to two choices—Democrat or Republican—that were situated along different points of a narrow establishment continuum. Anyone who didn’t pledge allegiance to the status quo (including communists) was relegated to the margins of the political system—if not regarded as an enemy of the state.
With Trump all this changed. For the first time in a long time, a mass movement emerged that situated itself outside of the status quo—against the status quo, in fact. “[10] [11] This means that radical political distinctions, rather than simple differences of opinion, are now possible, even in the realm of our democratic state. This is the beauty of the MAGA movement,” says Al-Din in one video.
“It isn’t always clear what the movement aims to do.”
In this sense, he notes, the specific political orientation that has hitherto characterized the MAGA movement—which is clearly anything but communist and is, in fact, vehemently anti-communist—is of secondary importance. What matters is that MAGA[12] reintroduces class struggle to American politics—not only because the MAGA movement draws its support base [13] mainly from the working class, but “because class struggle in politics, as Lenin pointed out, means the introduction of Clausewitzian enmity in politics.”
This, says Al-Din, means recognizing that “the primary contradiction in American politics is between MAGA and the status quo. … Partisanship has made its definite return in the United States solely in the MAGA movement, which has again reintroduced real political enmity and distinction to the belly of the globalist beast itself.” The point is not what Trump says, but what he means to people. And when people fly the Trump flag, what they’re saying is: “Fuck the World Economic Forum, fuck Big Tech, fuck Big Pharma, [14] fuck the status quo.”
American communists, Al-Din argues, are therefore faced with a stark choice: They can either remain within the safe space of ideologically consistent but politically irrelevant echo chambers, or they can choose to engage with the real political contradictions of contemporary America. They can join leftists in demonizing MAGA supporters as inherently racist, xenophobic, and so on, which effectively means siding with the status quo, or [15] they can sacrifice ideological purity and side with the only mass working-class and anti-establishment movement that currently exists in America. [16] There is no middle path.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that communists should [17] passively accept whatever ideological orientation MAGA happens to have at the moment. On the contrary, a crucial point of Al-Din’s argument is that MAGA shouldn’t be viewed as a coherent ideology,[18] but as a symbol of anti-elite struggle that remains open to the construction of a wide range of political identities.
In this sense, MAGA should be seen as something that began with Trump and is still associated with him—but that has the potential of [19] taking on a life of its own, having become the host of every actual counter-hegemonic ideological tendency within the United States.
MAGA, in this account, is not a monolith but a terrain of contestation. Indeed, #MAGACommunism arises out of an awareness that the MAGA movement is at a crossroads. It represents “an alternate timeline for America. Which alternate timeline is an open question.” The populist energies that have gathered under its banner may merely become another instrument of elite-driven imperialism, as hawks weaponize anti-communism to promote war against China and Russia. The #MAGACommunism meme should therefore be understood as an attempt to salvage—and, indeed, strengthen—the working-class, anti-establishment, and anti-imperialist elements of the movement.
It’s safe to say the prospect of socialist ideas spreading among American workers is not one the country’s ruling classes look upon favorably. But the advocates of #MAGACommunism hope to make communism appealing to ordinary working-class people by decoupling it from the t[20] oxic ideology of leftism. Whereas the latter has turned into a fanatical and anti-popular ideology that looks down upon the masses, and despises everything most people hold dear—nation, family, tradition—#MAGACommunists claim to be reclaiming a revolutionary legacy rooted in a deep patriotic respect for the [21] national, familial, and cultural premises that define a people.
“Socialism with American characteristics,” as they call it, does not aim to [22] change all private-property relations, let alone abolish all private property. On the contrary, it is one that aims to overthrow the [23] monopolists, the bankers, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big Tech and others, in order to [24] allow people have more things, not less.
Beyond the playful memes, however, it isn’t always clear what the movement aims to do. Does it seek to unite people from the far left and far right under the same anti-elite umbrella, without challenging the ideologies of the various factions, as Hinkle would appear to be suggesting? Or does it aim to [25] transcend existing ideologies and the left-right political spectrum altogether to create a new “populist” working class-elites spectrum, as Al-Din seems to imply?
If the goal is a hard-left-hard-right union, the problem is that there are clearly lines that have to be drawn in terms of who you ally yourself with. Moreover, the risk is that the movement ends up being perceived as a “sum of extremes” tha[26] t alienates moderate voters both on the left and on the right, thus resulting in a whole that is less than the sum of the parts.
And if the goal is to transcend the left-right spectrum altogether, #MAGACommunists are bound to discover that the dichotomy is harder to kill than they think, especially by resorting to a term (communism) that is arguably impossible to extricate from that dichotomy. Moreover, so-called culture-war issues—from abortion to race—have become part and parcel of contemporary politics, and can’t be wished away in the name of working-class unity.
Ultimately, one can’t help but feel that we are still stuck in a situation in which the old political spectrum has become zombified, but a new one is yet to be born. #MAGACommunism may prove to be nothing more than a meme, but it shows the hunger that exists for a less stultifying politics.
A Specter is Haunting a Relative Handful of Anti-Reset Stalinists: The Specter of Red-Brown Banality: a Critique of “MAGA Communism”
Outline
Communists should embrace certain issues and positions now embraced by conservative libertarians of the MAGA movement--especially, the anti-mandate, anti-Great Reset positions.
But there is a big difference between that, and ENTERING into the MAGA movement, as these authors seem to suggest.
At the heart of their confusion, these (Stalinist) authors are confused about the class nature of the MAGA movement.
It is led by the right wing petit bourgeoisie.
And thus it is the task of communists not to enter into the MAGA movement, but offer a transitional program to the working class elements therein, in order to split the workers from the petit bourgeoisie.
- In order to split the workers and petit bourgeoisie, it would be necessary to insert oneself next to the petit-b, in-between them and the workers though…
As has been typical for Stalinists, they are adapting to petit bourgeois populism. They do not see right wing populism as itself a catspaw for the ruling class. They no longer oppose
a) The capitalist class
b) capitalism
c) Private property
d) The culture of commodity consumption and acquisition.
But instead oppose
a) The “monopolists” and the “bankers”
- What is the concrete distinction between the “capitalist class” and the “monopolists”? My understanding is the [28] petit bourgeoisie are not the true capitalist class because they are not the ruling class. And if we are facing techno-feudalism, as many leftists say, couldn’t the petit bourgeoisie be a necessary ally, as they were against the original feudalism? [29] [30] [31] [32] Weren’t petit-b peasants a revolutionary force in [33] Russia, [34] China, etc.?
- This is an adaptation to the right wing, Proudhonian, Petit bourgeois notion that we, the petit bourgeoisie can have (and profit from) capitalism (via our exploitation of our own workers, and our get rich schemes), but do away with the monopolists who now control it. No, as Marx argued in his Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State, and in the Poverty of Philosophy, capitalism has an intrinsic tendency to monopoly (and tyranny). Thinking we can have one without the other, is like having “Catholicism without the Pope.” (Marx, PoP).
The danger
A red brown alliance--Alexander Reid Ross
- As The Grayzone has pointed out, AR Ross is essentially a fed, and he probably always was. I think his theory has done a lot of damage dividing radicals from the working-class.
Alexander Reid Ross, disgraced author of several retracted articles, works with ex-cops, CIA spies, and DHS agents - The [35] Grayzone
National bolshevism--Karl Radek
I.e. liquidation into petit bourgeois politics
My personal experience, the New York Medical Freedom/Alliance Party--aka, the Boulevard of Broken Greens
Egomania, authoritarianism, single issue of anti-mandate politics, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, blame homelessness all on the Democrats.
The Greens in support of these egomaniacs say “of course I oppose your right wing politics. But no question, you should not only be the Campaign Manager. You should be the Party (Despot)! And I’ll be the President and Vice President of your fan club”------??!!!! And they see no contradiction here.
Whatever happened to the First Green Pillar: “Grassroots Democracy”?!!!
The “imperial me” cult of Future Christmas, in Rod Serling’s Carol for another Christmas” (starring Peter Sellers)
Wilson Carey McWilliams “old liberal (narcissistic) dream”--we can still exploit people and get away with it smelling like lambs
There is always a struggle for the minds of the petit bourgeoisie--see Lewis Corey, The Crisis of the Middle Class, chapter on the Progressives and their adaptation to imperialism vis Statist authoritarianism--, who can either become disciplined Bolshevik Leninists--or liquidate into a right wing authoritarian mentality
(even bolshevism itself was a form of petit bourgeois authoritarianism when it came to the maintenance of power--away from the working class--but that’s another story--see Sam Farber, Before Stalinism, and Tim Wohlforth, “The Two Souls of Leninism.” ATC 4-5, September October 1986.
- #MAGAcommunism’s stance towards the GOP seems complex. See the clip about Ron De Santis here with subtitle “Republican Party deceives conservative working-class populists” -
https://www.instagram.com/infravalktexas/
- Better video:
-
[1] Thomas Fazi, “What is MAGA Communism,” Compact, September 22, 2022, at What Is MAGA Communism? | Compact Mag
[2] Harmless to the bourgeoisie, though certainly such diversion is extremely harmful to the cause of Communism and the working class.
[3] Leon Trotsky, 1905, Chapter 25, “Our Differences,” at Leon Trotsky: 1905 (Chapter 25) (marxists.org)
[4] Of course
[5] Patterned after the “transitional program” of Leon Trotsky, in his groundbreaking document in 1938. The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International.
[6] Since then, in response to my outrage at the mistreatment I have received from this clique, she has banned me from her weekly get togethers/salons.
Wow, how original is that?!!!
Or how about just "stupid"?
Neo-Nietzschean claptrap: The Gay Science
What they recall is the antinomies uttered by the still adolescent Romeo Montague, mooning over Rosalind, before he falls in love with and marries Juliet Capulet and grows up. Then and only then can he create real poetry!
Ho (Chi Minh) Hum, another Stalinist Popular Front!
"internet politics"--isn't that a contradiction in terms? What is this fascination these people have with social media as some sort of Delphic oracle?
?! Support?!!! Ally, maybe, with great reservations. But support?
Can you say, "Red Brown Alliance?" No this isn't quite that, contra the sheepie liberals' false charges, but we need a more sophisticated policy than just liquidation--which I've experienced in the MFA/P--the Boulevard of Broken-Down Greens.
So did Hitler after the Reichstag fire
Look at Alexander Reid Ross, Against the Fascist Creep
. There's a great danger hereof which these Stalinist authors seem blissfully ignorant.
Yes, the class struggle whereby the petit bourgeoisie appends to itself the working class in its fight against the big bourgeoisie.
No, this is absolutely false. Its base is the petit bourgeoisie.
Yes, that's what the right wing of the petit bourgeoisie want to say.
This is ridiculous, Stalinist bullshit.
No, there is the middle path of winning the working class elements away from the petit bourgeoisie with a transitional program.
Oh, no?
LOL! So what they are advocating is to take up residence within the MAGA movement rather than critique it in order to conduct a splitting operation.
Ridiculous, slavish, authoritarian nonsense.
LOL! What about the toxic ideology of right wing nationalism?!!!!
Pure right wing nationalism! They have adapted to it completely!
?!!! Oh so now their not into abolishing private property?! Dirty rotten Stalinist traitors!
This is Earl Browder's "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism": adaption to Populism/Progressivism.
? This idiot a) fails to recognize the difference between private property and possession, b) critique the culture of "having"--possessiveness-- vs. "being", a la Fromm.
Is he fucking kidding me?
Oh, now that's the gravest sin, isn't it? Alienating voters!
The monopolists can be stopped, without destroying the capitalist system--or at least, that is the populists' utopian wet dream
and who is saying the petit bourgeoisie are the true capitalist class? Certainly not me, and not marx
The workers were and are the only revolutionary force. The peasantry and petit bourgeoisie, unless they embrace marxism, are reactionary. It says so right in the Communist Manifesto! and the Address of the Central Committee to the Communist league
I understand they're not the revolutionary subject, or the vanguard. But that is different from saying they are always counter-revolutionary.
They have counterrevolutionary TENDENCIES. These must always be guarded against. On the other hand, you ae wrong to say they cannot be the vanguard. No, the petit bourgeois intellectuals, like ourselves, ARE the vanguard--but only if they come over to the side of the proletariat, and embrace socialism. But still here, we must be disciplined, principled, and constantly on guard against egotism and authoritarianism
Correction, we the petit bourgeois socialist intellectuals are the KERNEL of the vanguard, the precipitant around which must form the vanguard crystal--the material for which comes from other petit bourgeois intellectuals whom we win over--but mostly, the advanced layer of the workers. And within the Party, until the seizure of power, there must be strictly egalitarian relations, and then, afterward, the successful insurrectionary Party must open up to the entirety of the working class, and their parties, to create a multi-party soviet republic.
See Rosa Luxemburg and Paul Levi on the role of the Bolsheviks' "land to the peasants" policy in preserving their pro-capitalist ideology and the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy.
If you mean Maoism, it was no accident that this revolution became Stalinist. It was a revolution led by Nietzschean, completely amoral intellectuals, leading the peasantry, after the Stalinists had betrayed the workers to the Kuomintang, they were able to take power only as a result of several unique factors:
1) the sponsorship of the Soviet degenerated workers state.
2) the utter corruption and bankruptcy of the Kuomintang, and
3) the bourgeois regime's abandonment by the imperialists
4) the repression of the Maoists by the Kuomintang, forcing them to take power (Stalinists NEVER take power unless and until they are FORCED to by the bourgeoisie and the imperialists--see Cuba).
Don't resort to ad hominem to dismiss his powerful analysis. Yes, I know he's pro-imperialist, but so was Tim Wohlforth. ad argumentum, not ad hominem! Does his logic and evidence--in this book--measure up?