Class War is Multi-factional

Left Unity, Coalitions, and Loose Alliances

[Note: This essay is the script for my video Class War is Multi-factional . It is unedited from the original, and certain lines make more sense if listened to rather than read. But I feel the main arguments can still be understood without watching the video.]

Class War is Multi-factional

The question of unity among leftists is often portrayed as having a very clear cut answer:

“Let’s learn to put aside our differences and make a united front!”

“No! Only my tendency can successfully unify the masses and if we don’t unify under my banner then it won’t happen!”

Class Warfare is just like any warfare at the end of the day. Critical points in history can make it seem like it was a one v one, good vs evil narrative where the Communists rallied all the workers and peasants in their country against the evil capitalist-imperialist forces and saved the day. But the reality is far more complicated.

Just a heads up I’m going to be describing my interpretation of current class politics from the perspective of a Marxist-Leninist and as a comrade living within the belly of the beast, the United States. If you are a non-Marxist-Leninist leftist or even oppose Marxism-Leninism as either authoritarian or revisionist, then I hope you still get something out of this video. There’s no reason you shouldn’t do your own analysis of the various factions of class power that exist in order to use their presence to your benefit rather than wasting energy fighting battles you don’t need to.

I’m also no major representative of Marxism-Leninism as an ideology. As of posting this video I have less than 100 subs on Youtube and Twitch. I am a single comrade wanting to share my opinion and interpretation of what we need to do. I’ve joined several communist organizations in the past but am currently tied to none, although I do talk to a few and help out when I can. Make of that what you will.

At the highest point of class struggle, the revolutionary period, class forces tend to consolidate themselves into fewer and fewer forces until you have the complete domination of a single class. However, in the years leading up that point, many factions within a class can emerge over diverging material interests and political consciousness.

The October Revolution saw very few casualties in November of 1917. However, It wasn’t long until reactionary forces began consolidating to take down the newly established socialist project. Among the Bolsheviks were Chinese and Mongolian communist volunteers. There were anarchist militias scattered across the republic, most famously the Free Territory led by Nestor Mahkno. The Russian Republic fielded the White Army, but there were small anti-communist separatist groups in Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and more. And not only that, but BOTH Allied and Central powers from World War 1 invaded Russia to put a stop to the Communists.

The Chinese Revolution occurred in a space of Japanese Occupation, the fascist KMT, and various other governments led by Japanese collaborators and feudal warlords. During the pre war period, there were constant debates about whether to take up Marxism, Anarchism, build up capitalism to catch up to the West, reject Modernity and look to ancient traditions of Chinese culture, and so on.

With just these two examples, we see just how complex the actual ground work is going to be. The communists at various times made strategic alliances with all kinds of forces that they hated in order to continue moving the dialectic forward. We could go more in depth into the history of what happened to all these factions and how the Communists were ultimately able to unite the masses to victory, but there are other comrades who can do a better job at that than me.

What I want to investigate is what are the current political factions in the U.S, the consequences of their actions, and how Communists can make strategic alliances and using that alliance to shape material conditions in our favor. Calling these factions "social fascists", "ultra-leftists" "western chauvinists," "Cointelpro", and so on isn't going to make these factions go away. They are here to stay whether we like it or not. So rather than get into Twitter arguments with them, let's see how we can fit them into our strategy.

Let's start with the U.S government. The U.S is a constantly evolving entity, with various political interests all vying for power to different degrees of success. The Trump administration represented mostly isolationist, nationalist, and self-centered industrial capital interests. Many leftists would call the Trump administration fascistic and it’s hard to disagree, although the reasons why would be different coming from a radical-liberal versus a Marxist-Leninist or anarchist. The police seem to ally themselves most with this faction.

The Biden administration represents a coalition of establishment forces in servitude of finance capital. They are the managers of empire, who are willing to make most of the changes necessary to maintain empire, by providing small concessions on social issues and even a few economic reforms. But as we’ve recently seen, imperialism and even outright warmongering is stronger under this administration, so that’s something we need to keep our eye on. The military as of right now seems aligned with this faction.

The Social Democrats are represented by the “Squad,” Alexandria Ocasio Cortez being the symbolic figurehead of this group, although there have been recent splits among this faction between those who are willing to capitulate to the Biden administration, and those who are at least in rhetoric uncompromising on their social democratic values, someone like Jimmy Dore would be in this camp. Many of us were introduced to communism by first advocating for Bernie and AOC and then becoming disillusioned at their ineffectiveness, and I still think this process can continue. That is the extent of their usefulness. These people have openly hostile views of actual socialism and anti-imperialist countries. On top of that, the Biden administration has successfully thwarted all attempts of the Social Democrats from achieving any kind of political power even during multiple crises that occurred in 2019, 2020, and 2021. They don’t have any backing from finance or major industrial capital. At best they have the support of some petite bourgeoisie and smaller sections of the entertainment industry who have in recent years allowed the release of some propaganda material that is somewhat critical of capitalism in its current form. But this pales in comparison to the former two who have either finance or industrial capital backing them or both. The Social Democrats will eventually dissolve due to hitting an immovable object.

That’s the U.S Government in a simplified form, but who are the other non-leftist players out there?

There’s obviously the open fascists. Proud boys, Boogaloo Boys, Patriot Prayer, there are just too many groups to count that range from Neo-Nazis, Christian Theocrats, white supremacists, Eco-fascists. But the two common trends in all of them are an underlying belief that America is being taken over by Communists (I wish) and a willingness to collaborate and work together to reach their goals. Their motives are obvious; install a fascist state and kill or imprison anyone who stands in their way. They currently don’t have state control, so they operate as small chapters in various cities and antagonize local populations, although there is definitely collaboration among groups across state borders.

There are independent community organizations scattered across the country that don’t necessarily have state backing but are there to be a buffer between us and the masses. Many religious organizations fulfill this role. Liberal forms of ethnic representative groups also count. Many of these groups coalesce under the Democrats, but sometimes operate “apolitically” while the circumstances allow it.

The last group I want to mention are gangs. In periods of crisis there will always be a rise in gang membership and violence. This is due to the desperation the most outcasted of society feel and the willingness to do whatever it takes to escape poverty. Sympathy must be given to the lowest who get wrapped up in such acts, but those at the top are just as bourgeois as any finance capitalist. I’ve seen the term “lumpen-bourgeoisie” thrown around and that’s a fitting term. Don’t underestimate gangs. There are roughly 30,000 known gangs scattered across the U.S. Some of the largest of them already function as regional warlords but in a crisis situation more of them can easily reach warlord status.

Obviously I’m simplifying this for the sake of time as I like to make short and to the point videos. In the future I want to invite on guests who can discuss these matters in more detail.

So now for the left….where to start?

There’s, um, well.

Yeah the Left is a bit of of a fucking mess right now. You can’t even have consistency between people who use the same ideological label. Marxist-Leninist doesn’t mean the same thing between two people. Anarchism? Pfff forget it.

It’s almost impossible to objectively classify the left under any reasonable metric. But despite the mess it tends to be in, we still need to try. I’m going to simplify this into four general trends.

Marxist-Leninists generally support all socialist countries and anti-imperialist countries, and advocate for a vanguard party that will unite and organize the masses to victory. They vary a lot in their tactics. Some call for educational sessions, protests, salting, sometimes mutual aid, dual power, and electoral participation. It really depends on the party/organization you are in.

Maoists, or Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, generally go entirely for a dual power strategy, prioritizing mutual aid, the construction of localized collectives, skill-based training, etc. They do always participate in protests and actions but believe these are roads to dual power. Maoists believe in the universality of Protracted People’s War. This isn’t the place to discuss PPW. All you need to know is that it is a type of guerrilla warfare successfully attempted by the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong against the Japanese and KMT. Maoists tend to vary as to when is the appropriate time to engage in PPW, some say nothing but PPW matters while others say we need to operate peacefully until we can start one but that it needs to happen eventually.

Anarchists have extremely strict rules when it comes to organizational hierarchy, as such, almost exclusively operate as local collectives and independent chapters of organizations. Anarchists form the bulk of black bloc demonstrations against fascist groups, although a reminder should be said that there are Marxists in black bloc too. Anarchists vary in tactics as well, but more often align with dual power strategy as well.

Democratic Socialists believe in the necessity to engage in elections for the purpose of winning to make reforms and challenging establishment politics in their own arena. Some believe in the necessity of revolution but believe electoralism is a necessary stepping stone towards it while others believe we can reform our way into socialism. Whether we like it or not, this is probably the largest faction of anti-capitalist forces, despite the fact that many times are indistinguishable from social-democrats. It makes sense that they're the largest because it’s a natural instinct to want to avoid the harder solution of revolution.

Like I said earlier, yelling at the other factions isn’t going to shape material conditions in our favor when the State is absolutely willing to keep the fascist paramilitary groups around if it keeps us cornered. We need to actually figure out a way to engage with and direct the actions of these other factions so that it ultimately benefits us. And to any Maoist, Anarchist, or Dem-Soc watching this videos the same logic applies to you. Calling us “Dengists” and “tankies” isn’t gonna make us go away either. Now back to the ML perspective.

One misconception about Mls is that we can’t provide any support to the anarchists because supporting them here will inevitably boost counter-revolutionary forces that spring up in anti-imperialist countries. We saw movements in China, Iran, Belarus, Russia, etc that were supported by anarchists in those countries. However, I question how much actual material support actually gets sent over to those counter-revolutionary movements. A few thousand dollars or a couple dozen volunteers isn’t really much compared to the funding of the CIA. At the end of the day the real difference as to whether counter-revolutionary forces succeed is a battle between the anti-imperialist administration and the effectiveness of the CIA to orchestrate a movement. I don’t really think Western ultra-left input really makes that much of a difference.

Still, there’s nothing stopping us from supporting the construction of an anarchist collective here in the imperial core which can do nothing but attempt to antagonize the US state and willingly choose to not support whatever counter-revolutionary forces said anarchists support in words only. In my opinion, an anarchist collective willing to squat buildings, distribute resources to the masses, and brawl with fascists does MORE to help anti-imperialist countries than the damage caused by mere vocal support for the movements anti-imperialist governments are trying to suppress.

This might get me banned from various ML groups but I’m not about to shy away from my opinions just because I think it’s controversial, but I personally think anarchists squatting buildings, fighting fascists, and being a nuisance to the police does more to aid anti-imperialist countries than Marxist-Leninists who focus the entirety of their praxis arguing with said anarchists on twitter on why anarchism is cringe and anti-imperialist countries are based. Because at least those anarchists are forcing the state to divert resources to deal with them. Every dollar the police have to spend sending a patrol to forcibly evict squatters is a dollar not being allocated directly to the military and sent abroad. At least they attempt to weaken the fascist paramilitary groups who if they had their way would subjugate the masses into fighting a war with China. Mls prioritizing vocal support for anti-imperialist countries does just as little as anarchists vocal support of counter-revolutionary movements.

I’m not accusing the majority of my fellow Mls of not engaging in praxis, plenty of us do. But even if you don’t, it isn’t a moral condemnation. Organizing is fucking hard. I work two jobs just so I can get by. The extent of my organizing is salting one of my jobs with a union, helping other communist organizations/parties with protests whenever I can, and making my videos. I’m aware some people are currently in the same position as I am, or are in school, live with reactionary family, I’m aware of all the reasons why someone can’t organize. I just want to be honest when I say that Twitter isn’t exactly the most helpful thing. Now back to factional support.

I think it’s a good idea for Marxist-Leninists to always build up any progressive forces in their area despite its contradictions. The most ideal scenario is that you start an ML organization and build it up quickly or you start a chapter of an existing organization and build it up quickly, thereby sidelining the build up of forces who have contradictory goals. But we don’t live in an ideal world now do we? If you are the only known ML in your area and there is an organization near you that is majority anarchists, it is still worth while to build them up.

Doing this will increase the likelihood that anarchists can actually view us as human beings and sympathize with our beliefs more but even if not, it will still allow us to build up a culture of resistance against capitalism within the imperial core. The more locations we can secure safe bases of operations for leftists the more we can link distant regions of the United States with easily accessible supply lines.

For example, choosing a random region in the US that I’m obviously not from, let’s say that we have some kind of ML Organization in Chicago, Des Moines, and Saint Louis. These organizations have chapters in the region of about 30-40 people. Not exactly a lot of coverage for the cities now is it? But what if there’s a demonstration in, say, St. Louis that either the state or fascist paramilitaries are attacking our comrades and the masses who stand with them. How do we effectively send reinforcements and supplies to that area in a timely manner despite the fact that we are all broke ass communists with barely any money to fund our own local organizations? In our current state, we can’t. And that needs to change or we are fucked.

The distance between Des Moines and St. Louis is roughly 7 hours driving. That’s an incredibly long distance for most proletarians who have to work 40 hour weeks. If we are to actually materially send support across such a great distance with the consistency and quantity that it actually makes a material difference, we need to have established footholds in the marked cities along the way, from what maps tells me, that’s at minimum Pella, Oskaloosa, Ottumwa, Mount Pleasant, and Hannibal. Open Source Maps tells me it makes about 2 hours to get from Hannibal to Saint Louis. That’s reasonable for some people but it’s still pushing it. The cities I mentioned were simply based on what OSM showed me are the largest cities on the way to St. Louis. Comrades actually from that area can decide for themselves are the strategically important cities to establish supply lines in. It’s not my place to decide. This is just an example. OSM tells me the biggest cities on the way from Chicago to St. Louis are Joliet, Pontiac, Bloomington, Lincoln, Springfield, and Litchfield. I don’t know these cities and towns at all. They could be full of reactionaries or there’s some potential there. I just named some cities along the way. The point is we need to secure actual supply routes if we are going to make revolution happen. I’m not talking about “supplies” in an adventurist sense. If I was the FBI would be knocking on my door literally as this video gets uploaded. I’m merely talking about being able to send people and supplies wherever we need them. Material action and material goods always have more change on the world than words do. This is fundamental to dialectical materialist thought.

Now tell me, does your organization think it can build up new branches/chapters of Mls in those named cities at the rate we need you to in order to accomplish what needs to be done? If I’m being honest, I’m not very confident any organization is moving as fast as we need them to. And again this isn’t a moral condemnation I love all my Marxist-Leninist comrades I just think we need to figure out how to build up faster so that we can be a revolutionary resistance to the American state and the fascists when they inevitably start a war with china and Russia or start violent raids against our communities. It will mean less people die if we are able to do that.

But there is a solution. If we help build up any progressive left forces that organically coalesce in the area, be they anarchist, Maoist, or even Dem-Soc, then over time we have more allies who we can count on as “checkpoints” that can facilitate more transportation of people and supplies to areas we need them. If you make an open coalition with any of these organic collectives, and you provide them money and labor for their construction, they’re more likely going to temporarily look past our differences because it’s hard to turn away that kind of material support. If they decide to betray you and run with the money and condemn you, then you can be confident their operations are going to fail anyways because if they are willing to betray an organization who offered direct support then what’s to assume they wouldn’t do that to any of the masses who seek their aid?

Doing this also gives socialism more spread across the large landmass that is the United States. If your main base is in Des Moines, then it is fairly likely that some of your local community has family in Pella, who have an increased chance of hearing a socialist message because it’s easy to ignore communists in a big urban area and if anything you are more likely to be noticed if a family member from another city just so happens to find socialists, even of a different tendency, and tells them about us. It’s easy to get lost in the sensory overload battlefield of ideas in urban areas. Capture surrounding areas around your main base city and link up more land mass with the cause. Part of why fascists are so well connected is that they literally travel long distances to support each other’s rallies. It’s easier for them because most of them are petite bourgeois. But communists need to figure out a way for us to do the same.

After all that has been said, even if you aren’t the type of org who wants to send material supplies or people do different regions of the country, I still think making strategic alliances with other organizations in cities outside your main base of operations is useful because aside from spreading communism we also need to halt the advance of the imperialists and fascists. Mls may believe anarchist and Maoist praxis are dead ends, I do also which is why I’m an ML, but we should exhaust the usefulness of these other tendencies to their last drop because they are here to stay for awhile whether we like it or not. Anarchists may not have a correct understanding of imperialism, but they're generally at least anti-war (not counting Vaush but I mean most anarchists also hate vaush anyway). And they are generally the first ones to throw down with fascists. If ultimately their praxis will not achieve revolution we should at least help them do the things they are good at until their praxis is no longer viable and they either do the principled thing and join Mls or they out themselves as irrational dogmatists on their own which will lead to the masses rejecting them.

We need to help build them up as a bulwark against the worst factions of the Empire. They can offer us a temporary alliance that can make it easier for Mls to maneuver through the complex landscape that is the belly of the beast. And I do genuinely believe that if we make a concerted effort to make these alliances and help them in their short term goals that a significant number of them will come to see things our way.

If we recognize the contradictions in their ideologies will ultimately lead them to a dead end, then we shouldn’t fear helping them on the grounds that they’ll somehow overtake Marxism-Leninism and be a successful tool of the capitalists, right? I personally don’t fear working with anarchists because I believe most of them have a good heart and even the ones who don’t I don’t see them winning with or without our help.

And for any Maoists, Trotskyists, Democratic Socialists, etc out there who actually watched the whole video. If you feel like Marxism-Leninism is a dead end because “we just deny facts about authoritarian state capitalist regimes”, then why do you fear helping us out? Why not use us to your advantage and then throw us under the bus to die to the guns of the fascists or better yet not throw us under the bus and watch us blunder our way into the barrels of fascists? I declared my honest belief that I see most of you have a good heart, knowing that it might draw upon the ire of my own comrades in my tendency. I hope this video makes it so that some of you can see me and other Mls in the same light.

Thank you all so much for watching this video. It’s a pretty heavy topic. The next video will be a literary analysis video so that will be much more fun. I also stream to raise money for on the ground organizations. 50% of all donations on Youtube will go directly to an organization doing some IRL work whether its mutual aid, salting, outreach, etc. I will also share direct donation links because even though I need some income to keep the channel going as I work two jobs to get by, I want to make it clear that I’m not a grifter and I’m in it to see a better future for all members of the working class.

Thank you all comrades,

and as always,

Solidarity Forever!

[End Note: As of publishing I am not publically attached to any organization. However, in the near future I intend to restart my fundraising for local orgs once my own financial situation stabilizes. Stay tuned for updates]