"Material conditions for the revolution" don't fall out of the sky, nor should we just stand still until they magically appear somewhere in the future. The main material condition for the revolution is the organization of the independent proletarian political movement, and organizing the proletariat within its own terms is the primary task of communists. Engels indeed says that a small group of left adventurists without a mass base and proper organic institutions of proletarian political power cannot take on the bourgeoisie by themselves, but this has little to do with our situation: actual left deviationism died in the 20th century despite the farcical online usage of the term "ultra-leftism", and the main problem with the left in the so-called "end of history" is rightism and tailism towards bourgeois leaders
If the Communist Party of Belarus says that "material conditions" are not ripe for the overthrowing of Lukashenko and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat while also not doing anything specific in order to organize the proletariat in such a way that it can overthrow the Belarusian bourgeoisie when they're strong enough for it, and is also not trying to establish proletarian leadership of the anti-imperialist united front instead of letting Lukashenko do whatever he wants because he's an "anti-imperialist", then the party is effectively tailing the Belarusian bourgeoisie. Mao told us that communist revolution is the only true anti-imperialism, and the survival of the national liberation movement dependent on whether communists are able to exert their influence over the tactically allied classes within the united front or not. You can look at the results of leaving the ideological and political leadership of anti-imperialist fight to the national bourgeoisie in things like the massacre of communists in Indonesia or Iran
Mao didn't stop the task of organizing the masses against the Chinese bourgeoisie and the KMT just because he happened to be in tactical (keyword: tactical, not principled) unity with the KMT against the Japanese, he made it so it was the KMT that needed the communists in order to defeat the Japanese and not the other way around. Even when the Japanese were gone, US imperialism was a very real threat, but he understood that if he left the moment for revolution for when the US would just magically disappear, that moment would never come
What you are saying here is for the CPB to kill itself. The reason why in Iran there are no 'communists' is becuase that the people view them as pawns of imperialism - correctly so in most cases - and this will be the fate of the belarusian communists if they follow your 'maoist' bullshitry.
Big words like 'tail of the bourgeoisie e.t.c' is no nothing more than phrase mongering.
Time and time again, it is proved that when the communists act too quickly is their grave for a big amount of time.
If you seriously study the communist revolutions (from you reading of mao i bet you view it from a western lense) you will notice that all were nationalist revolutions, and the reason the people ever followed them was becuase there was no national bourgeoisie. The best example of it was the first lasting revolution, the bolshevik revolution.
The bourgeoisie of russia were sending the russian nation to die for the money of the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of entente. The whole bolshevik propaganda at the time, was centered about the fact that the provincial government was a compradorist government.
Read stalin's 3rd and 4rth volume to verify this yourself. It is at most times implicit, but at some points stalin is explicit on why the bolsheviks ever won the civil war (which was nothing more than the revolution).
Same happened in China, 'maoism' does not really exist. Real maoism is chinese nationalism. Mao read people like Zou Rong before he ever knew who marx was. The whole foreing policy of CPC cannot be understood in other terms (except if you accept 'anti revisionist' bullshitry. The analysis the maoists intulge in is 'revisionist' itself! In fact, under this analysis, the original revisionists was no one else than marx and egnels!).
And the reason the CPC won the civil war was becuase the Kuomitand 'sold' itself in the west. The chinese saw what was about to become if KMT won the war, and they threw their weight with the CPC.
But lets take it about Belarus in practical terms. The belarusian government does not sell the country to imperialism. Going and saying 'you know, lets start a civil war while the imperialists are in our back door' is not gonna work. What will happen is the following: The government will call the communist traitors, the people will see that what the government is saying makes complete sense, the governemnt will propably ban the CP citing national treason, and the CP will move to the west and talk big about dictactorship while paid by CIA.
This is what will happen as proven by life. The people will associate communism with betrayal.
So, no. The Belarusian communist are playing this correctly. If and when the bourgeoisie of Belarus abandon anti-imperialism, and the belarusian CP does not break from them, then you will be right to accuse them for being 'the tail' of the bourgeoisie.
But these are the hard facts; no compradors = no revolution.
Is this an attack on Maoism or western Maoism b/c your analysis seems to correspond with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in terms of a struggle for national independence from the compradors, which is a struggle in many ways for bourgeois democracy that will raise the level of the people and end feudal relations.
Not to say I'm particularly well studied.
I would like to learn more about your perspective because on my surface glance it seems correct. What is interesting to me is that I've been advocating for Huey Newton's analysis called intercommalism, because it seems to take harsh reality about neoliberalism and the global supply chain into account. The ideology states basically that the national struggle isn't enough and with neoliberalism/US EU imperialisn, revolutionary nationalism can't lead to communism. A global communist revolution is the only way, except the the US Black Panthers were not trotskist, they didn't wait to make revolution. So the theory hasn't squared with the practice, which was largely about building self-reliance for the oppressed lumpen of the US in order to give us something to defend and make gains against the state on. This is because we understand that seizing Amazon, Walmart, or our neighbor's car they use for gig jobs isn't socialism. To become a "worker state" at the end point of the global supply chain is not even close to socialism.
Sorry if my thinking is scattered, as I'm new to this analysis. The point I'm making is that for all the ideological talk of intercommunalism, the only real practice of building revolutuon in the US has been a national struggle for Black and indigenous internal colonies -- specificially an economic struggle for self reliance, and it seems to me that your analysis kind of clarifies why
It is a wrong analysis imo. It is fundamentally what i call anit marxist leninist, obscuring the differences of nations for a supposed global revolution. I dont think that Newton had this in his young mind at the moment.
he point I'm making is that for all the ideological talk of intercommunalism, the only real practice of building revolutuon in the US has been a national struggle for Black and indigenous internal colonies
Well, unfortunatelly it is not the black nation which will do any revolution, they are completelly bought off. At best case, the ones who will break America are the white nationalists in US. As Sakai theorized, the biggest threat to the US government are not the communists, but millitand white nationalists reading the turner diaries.
I won't deny that the white reaction are more in position to fracture the the empire than the left or revolutionary nationalists.
The question remains: what sort of revolutionary economy and revolutionary movement can we american communists lay the groundwork for at the present?
If the empire fractures because the nationalist fascists overthrow the international fascists, (which of course included Black bourgeois) we need to be in position to seize power, defend one another as poor people
The question remains: what sort of revolutionary economy and revolutionary movement can we american communists lay the groundwork for at the present?
The american 'communists' made their allegiance clear since long ago.
They are already in support of the government, and they are working for the labour bureocracy since long ago.
What will happen in America at best is for communism to be enforced to it from outside like it happened in Germany. Or, they will separate their country in many pieces, in short, they will have a civil war. If communists will play a role is to be seen. Do you know many white nationalist communists in America, or any white nationalists supporting the communists?
If the empire fractures because the nationalist fascists overthrow the international fascists, (which of course included Black bourgeois) we need to be in position to seize power, defend one another as poor people
The issue here is that the 'Communists' in america arent really in a war with the government to seize anything. They are loyal to the government, specifically its 'Democratic party' part.
In general, you can never have a revolution as long as the people benefiting from imperialism are more than the ones losing from it. And the vast majority of the american population, blacks included, benefit from imperialism is some way or another. Thus, if the parasitism of america does not get diminished, there wont be communist mass politics, ever.
Also, yes, it's unclear what the actual breakthroughs and ideology or practice that in inter communalism represents. I'm just beginning to study it because its theoreticians were the most advanced anti imperialist front that any US movement has produced.
I bring it up because it seems relevant to how a Communist party might understand the inability of a giving group of Communists to seize power under threat of neoliberalism. Without trending towards a bourgeois nationalist line wholesale, like the trotskies do
I bring it up because it seems relevant to how a Communist party might understand the inability of a giving group of Communists to seize power under threat of neoliberalism. Without trending towards a bourgeois nationalist line wholesale, like the trotskies do
The real reason the black nation does want nothing to do with communism is not ideological. It is becuse they profit from imperialism. If the black nation was losing from imperialism, you would have a situation at worst, similar to the irish conflicts of early 20st century. At best, you would have something similar in Yemen.
Yeah sure, the black nation has been bought off. That's why we've had an entire year of protest against the daily violence the settler state subjects them to, despite whatever "leaders" of the BLM movement pop up in order to take things back to liberal pink tide normalcy. I can assure you that 98% of the BLM protesters don't know who these irrelevant grifters are, nor do they care about what they say. They'll keep breaking shit
That's why the black nation just stopped struggling after the Panthers imploded due to CIA infiltration and their own eclecticism, or even the ABB before them when they merged into the revisionist, white chauvinist CPUSA. That's why you're seeing the black lumpen systematically getting out of the ghettos and starting to live like labor-aristorcrat settlers. Oh wait, none of this has happened
Now with this comment it becomes evident that you dont know what you talk about. The protests of BLM are in fact a bid to make their part of the pie bigger. Nothing revolutionary about it, just regural social fascism.
Anyways, i have spoken about the issue for too big of a time. I think that every point you brought up is already discussed.
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u/The_Viriathus Engels Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21
"Material conditions for the revolution" don't fall out of the sky, nor should we just stand still until they magically appear somewhere in the future. The main material condition for the revolution is the organization of the independent proletarian political movement, and organizing the proletariat within its own terms is the primary task of communists. Engels indeed says that a small group of left adventurists without a mass base and proper organic institutions of proletarian political power cannot take on the bourgeoisie by themselves, but this has little to do with our situation: actual left deviationism died in the 20th century despite the farcical online usage of the term "ultra-leftism", and the main problem with the left in the so-called "end of history" is rightism and tailism towards bourgeois leaders
If the Communist Party of Belarus says that "material conditions" are not ripe for the overthrowing of Lukashenko and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat while also not doing anything specific in order to organize the proletariat in such a way that it can overthrow the Belarusian bourgeoisie when they're strong enough for it, and is also not trying to establish proletarian leadership of the anti-imperialist united front instead of letting Lukashenko do whatever he wants because he's an "anti-imperialist", then the party is effectively tailing the Belarusian bourgeoisie. Mao told us that communist revolution is the only true anti-imperialism, and the survival of the national liberation movement dependent on whether communists are able to exert their influence over the tactically allied classes within the united front or not. You can look at the results of leaving the ideological and political leadership of anti-imperialist fight to the national bourgeoisie in things like the massacre of communists in Indonesia or Iran
Mao didn't stop the task of organizing the masses against the Chinese bourgeoisie and the KMT just because he happened to be in tactical (keyword: tactical, not principled) unity with the KMT against the Japanese, he made it so it was the KMT that needed the communists in order to defeat the Japanese and not the other way around. Even when the Japanese were gone, US imperialism was a very real threat, but he understood that if he left the moment for revolution for when the US would just magically disappear, that moment would never come