In Defense of Self-Defense (1967)

By Huey P. Newton

Source: The Huey Newton Reader

Men were not created in order to obey laws. Laws are created to obey men. They are established by men and should serve men. The laws and rules which officials inflict upon poor people prevent them from functioning harmoniously in society. There is no disagreement about this function of law in any circle the disagreement arises from the question of which men laws are to serve. Such lawmakers ignore the fact that it is the duty of the poor and unrepresented to construct rules and laws that serve their interests better. Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.

Before 1776 America was a British colony. The British Government had certain laws and rules that the colonized Americans rejected as not being in their best interests. In spite of the British conviction that Americans had no right to establish their own laws to promote the general welfare of the people living here in America, the colonized immigrant felt he had no choice but to raise the gun to defend his welfare. Simultaneously he made certain laws to ensure his protection from external and internal aggressions, from other governments, and his own agencies. One such form of protection was the Declaration of Independence, which states: ". . . whenever any government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Now these same colonized White people, these bondsmen, paupers, and thieves deny the colonized Black man not only the right to abolish this oppressive system, but to even speak of abolishing it. Having carried this madness and cruelty to the four corners of the earth, there is now universal rebellion against their continued rule and power. But as long as the wheels of the imperialistic war machine are turning, there is no country that can defeat this monster of the West. It is our belief that the Black people in America are the only people who can free the world, loosen the yoke of colonialism, and destroy the war machine. Black people who are within the machine can cause it to malfunction. They can, because of their intimacy with the mechanism, destroy the engine that is enslaving the world. America will not be able to fight every Black country in the world and fight a civil war at the same time. It is militarily impossible to do both of these things at once.

The slavery of Blacks in this country provides the oil for the machinery of war that America uses to enslave the peoples of the world. Without this oil the machinery cannot function. We are the driving shaft; we are in such a strategic position in this machinery that, once we become dislocated, the functioning of the remainder of the machinery breaks down.

Penned up in the ghettos of America, surrounded by his factories and all the physical components of his economic system, we have been made into "the wretched of the earth," relegated to the position of spectators while the White racists run their international con game on the suffering peoples. We have been brainwashed to believe that we are powerless and that there is nothing we can do for ourselves to bring about a speedy liberation for our people. We have been taught that we must please our oppressors, that we are only ten percent of the population, and therefore must confine our tactics to categories calculated not to disturb the sleep of our tormentors.

The power structure inflicts pain and brutality upon the peoples and then provides controlled outlets for the pain in ways least likely to upset them, or interfere with the process of exploitation. The people must repudiate the established channels as tricks and deceitful snares of the exploiting oppressors. The people must oppose everything the oppressor supports, and support everything that he opposes. If Black people go about their struggle for liberation in the way that the oppressor dictates and sponsors, then we will have degenerated to the level of groveling flunkies for the oppressor himself. When the oppressor makes a vicious attack against freedom-fighters because of the way that such freedom-fighters choose to go about their liberation, then we know we are moving in the direction of our liberation. The racist dog oppressors have no rights which oppressed Black people are bound to respect. As long as the racist dogs pollute the earth with the evil of their actions, they do not deserve any respect at all, and the "rules" of their game, written in the people's blood, are beneath contempt.

The oppressor must be harassed until his doom. He must have no peace by day or by night. The slaves have always outnumbered the slavemasters. The power of the oppressor rests upon the submission of the people. When Black people really unite and rise up in all their splendid millions, they will have the strength to smash injustice. We do not understand the power in our numbers. We are millions and millions of Black people scattered across the continent and throughout the Western Hemisphere. There are more Black people in America than the total population of many countries now enjoying full membership in the United Nations. They have power and their power is based primarily on the fact that they are organized and united with each other. They are recognized by the powers of the world.

We, with all our numbers, are recognized by no one. In fact, we do not even recognize our own selves. We are unaware of the potential power latent in our numbers. In 1967, in the midst of a hostile racist nation whose hidden racism is rising to the surface at a phenomenal speed, we are still so blind to our critical fight for our very survival that we are continuing to function in petty, futile ways. Divided, confused, fighting among ourselves, we are still in the elementary stage of throwing rocks, sticks, empty wine bottles and beer cans at racist police who lie in wait for a chance to murder unarmed Black people. The racist police have worked out a system for suppressing these spontaneous rebellions that flare up from the anger, frustration, and desperation of the masses of Black people. We can no longer afford the dubious luxury of the terrible casualties wantonly inflicted upon us by the police during these rebellions.

Black people must now move, from the grass roots up through the perfumed circles of the Black bourgeoisie, to seize by any means necessary a proportionate share of the power vested and collected in the structure of America. We must organize and unite to combat by long resistance the brutal force used against us daily. The power structure depends upon the use of force within retaliation. This is why they have made it a felony to teach guerrilla warfare. This is why they want the people unarmed.

The racist dog oppressors fear the armed people; they fear most of all Black people armed with weapons and the ideology of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If a government is not afraid of the people it will arm the people against foreign aggression. Black people are held captive in the midst of their oppressors. There is a world of difference between thirty million unarmed submissive Black people and thirty million Black people armed with freedom, guns, and the strategic methods of liberation.

When a mechanic wants to fix a broken-down car engine, he must have the necessary tools to do the job. When the people move for liberation they must have the basic tool of liberation: the gun. Only with the power of the gun can the Black masses halt the terror and brutality directed against them by the armed racist power structure; and in one sense only by the power of the gun can the whole world be transformed into the earthly paradise dreamed of by the people from time immemorial. One successful practitioner of the art and science of national liberation and self-defense, Brother Mao Tse-tung, put it this way: "We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."

The blood, sweat, tears and suffering of Black people are the foundations of the wealth and power of the United States of America. We were forced to build America, and if forced to, we will tear it down. The immediate result of this destruction will be suffering and bloodshed. But the end result will be the perpetual peace for all mankind.

The Importance of Political Education and Class Analysis in the Struggle for Black Liberation

By Erica Caines

This piece was originally published at Hood Communist.

What does organizing look like when Black radicals are being pushed out of spaces for ‘progressiveness’ that makes uncontested room for the centrist, right-wing and fascist narratives driving most platforms?  When examining the conflicts between those fighting oppression under capitalism and the capitalist state’s ruling class alongside those who subscribe to “success” and riches obtained at the expense of the oppressed, few things strike me as obvious disconnects and contradictions.

I am often asked about my relationship with the analytical science of Marxism-Leninism as it pertains to my studies, teachings, and praxis because it’s somehow shocking that a Black woman would align herself with a political ideology that’s been presented as predominantly white and male. I once used these moments as opportunities to flex my knowledge on the historical relationship between socialism/ communism and Black people (particularly Black women) as if I were a fact sheet. While it is important to highlight how many of those we’ve come to know as simply “civil rights activists” were politically and ideologically aligned with socialism/communism, what does that mean? Furthermore, why is that important? 

“Knowledge is power” is a familiar mantra. The Marxist Theory of Knowledge describes knowledge, or the idea of it, as socially constructed. Karl Marx details “power” (economic, intellectual and political) as something that stems from the ownership of the means of production. Simply put, a lot of what we *know* is predicated on the interests of the ruling class. It is in this country’s best interest to keep us ignorant. 

One way we combat ignorance is through active study and dialogue. One of the more frustrating things is the way reading is discussed as a pastime of the elite. That, in itself, highlights how comfortably ahistorical we’ve all become. We discuss accessibility and ability to study —-and by extension, obtain knowledge—- in bad faith. We fail to admit to our own intellectual laziness. It also highlights a misunderstanding of how knowledge and education should be used. 

Marx’s Dialectics of Theory and Practice assumes that none of us are “all-knowing”, but the practice of becoming politically educated, both understanding theories and using them in praxis to better conditions, ultimately improve and transform our conditions. One of the more famous examples of having done this can be found by studying members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. 

The BPP implemented collective actions that not only included providing much-needed resources but, more importantly, a political education. They believed in active study and debate and with that belief, went on to educate others enough to advocate for themselves. 

When communities advocate for themselves through breakfast programs, liberation schools and providing healthcare (the more prominent examples of the BPP’s work), ‘the group’ is prioritized over the individual. These small actions that result in transforming realities (material conditions) are what the practice and principle of collectivism are rooted in.

This differs from individualism, which is dependent solely on the best interest of the individual. Black people, in mass, seem to be engulfed in a state of individualism. Many have actively disconnected from our history of collectivism (and other tenets of socialism/ communism). This is made obvious with ‘celebrity culture’, the fixation on Black Capitalism as liberation and blatant misrepresentations of our “ancestors wildest dreams”. 

The lack of implementing class analysis (recognizing the significance of class) to understand our material conditions are major factors of the collective distortion of our material realities. I am not speaking on the problematic and dangerous ways white leftists ignore “whiteness” as a class issue to generically state “race and class” and ignore their innate racial prejudices. I am speaking on how our confrontations with racism, as Black people, have disallowed us to interrogate the Black people that exist within different class statuses. 

We live in a white supremacist capitalist imperialist patriarchy so Black people are, undoubtedly, confronted with how oppressions manifest, particularly racism. Unfortunately, we do not leave room to have any introspection on how oppressions manifest through class. All Black people may experience racism, but not all Black people experience poverty. When overwhelming many experience poverty, combatting racism, solely, causes us to turn a blind eye to capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.That “blind eye” results in a failure to [not want to] understand or implement a class analysis.

The purpose of class analysis is to clarify the agendas between classes. When we discuss the class structure of capitalism in Marxist theory, the capitalist stage of production consists of two main classes: the bourgeoisie (the capitalists who own the means of production) and the proletariat ( the working class who must sell their own labor power). If we are applying class analysis to our material conditions we are acknowledging how these class groups work and function within our realities. When applying it to our communities it is evident that the [almost non-existent] middle class would much rather align with the bourgeoisie (the rich) than the working class. This presents huge contradictions. Not just in organizing, but the way that we view liberation. 

In order for the bourgeois class to thrive, there must be an oppressed working class to exploit. If there are Black people who would much rather align with the rich, what does that mean for the Black people under the thumb of economic oppression? How does that manifest when we are talking about Black political power? 

Capitalist state ruling classes resist change. They disguise their arbitrary privileges and power behind lies, dogma, half-truths, and fallacies. This is most evident through the use of celebrity-driven and identity reductionist activism that uses “socialist” rhetoric to push neoliberal agendas that don’t seek to transform realities but make them easier to digest and not disrupt the status quo. 

In a society plagued by communities of individualists, how can we approach collectivism in substantial ways? We must have a principled commitment to political education, cooperation, and concern for the welfare of each other. 

Workers Unite. 

Racism on College Campuses: Understanding It and How to Fight Back

By Collin Chambers

“Racism is a fundamental characteristic of monopoly capitalism”

- George L. Jackson, 1971

White supremacy and settler colonialism have always undergirded US society from its very origins and foundations. Since the election of Trump in 2016, however, the systems of white supremacy and settler colonialism have taken off their “progressive neoliberal” (Fraser 2017) masks. This is evident through the increasing blatant acts of white nationalism and hate crimes. For instance, the rate and frequency of hate crimes on college campuses continue to rise (Bauer-Wolf 2019). To give a recent concrete and on-going example, towards the end of the Fall 2019 semester Syracuse University campus went through “two weeks of hate” as one student put it (McMahon 2019). In a 13-day period, there were 12 acts of racist hate-crimes. This series of racist graffiti has emboldened white supremacists on campus, which has recently culminated in a white nationalist manifesto being “airdropped” to individuals at a university library, the same one shared by the gunman in the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand. The Syracuse University Administration claims this is a myth, but it is a proven fact that the white supremacist manifesto was circulated and viewed within a Greek-life online platform/blog. 

In direct response to these events a POC-led group emerged. #NotAgainSU occupied the Barnes Center, a brand-new $50 million student/gym/wellness center for seven days and seven nights. Though it is a self-described “nameless and faceless” group, there is group of around 15 students who can be characterized as the leadership. From my understanding, and from discussions with those more enmeshed in the group, two-thirds of the 15 can be classified as more liberal and rooted in identity politics, and thus understand racism from this lens. I think the dominance of the more liberal-minded is shown through the list of 18 demands that the group wants met by the administration. I highlight the leadership because the leadership of any organization, group, or movement plays the determining role in characterizing the type of politics the organization has. The theoretical-political framework used to understand oppressions based on identity, like race, determines the politics and effectiveness in challenging/overthrowing structures of power. I do not intend for the essay to be a sectarian/outsider critique of #NotAgainSU—when there are direct actions/spontaneous protest against reactionary structures of power a revolutionary must participate despite any political-ideological limitations to the action/protest. I simply wish to offer what I think is the most efficient (i.e., most revolutionary) theoretical-political framework to deploy to understand racism in contemporary global capitalism. How we understand the world shapes how we act upon it. Identity politics is limiting in the sense that is “an integral part of the dominant ideology; it makes opposition impossible” (Haider 2018, 40). Identity politics needs to be left behind. Below, I offer my thoughts on what type of politics and strategy is necessary to productively fight against racism. 

Following the Geographer, Raju Das (2012), I do indeed privilege class in this analysis, but “do so in a manner in which race and gender are taken very seriously.” Class is, as Das says, “the dominant social relation” (Das 2012, 31), it cuts across all forms of social difference. Thus, in relation to the question of race, an anti-racist working-class politics and strategy needs to be developed and perpetuated. In this essay I argue in order to struggle against the structures of racism there needs to be an anti-racist working-class politic that is global in scope. This means centering imperialism. I emphasize imperialism because all imperialist wars are predicated and justified through racialized logics (both ideological and economical). Imperialist war and racism are inherently linked—one cannot exist without the other (see Du Bois 1933). As Andrea Smith (2012, 69) says nicely: “For the system of white supremacy to stay in place, the United States must always be at war.” I will first do this—though unpopular it may be in our post-structural times—by re-emphasizing the centrality of class. Then, I will offer a brief historical materialist understanding of racism in the age of imperialism (I do indeed argue that imperialism still exists, but that we are in a new unipolar era). Additionally, going against much “post-colonial” thought I emphasize the need to use the nation-state as a form of sovereignty that can fight against racism. With this understanding of racism, I will argue that Asad Haider’s (2018, 111) idea of “insurgent universalism,” which says: “I fight for my own liberation precisely because I fight for that of the stranger,” is a useful strategy/method to fight racism. 

Re-centering Class to Fight Racism

The current political economic situation necessitates for a return to more traditional conceptions of class. Living and growing up in a social formation dominated by the capitalist mode of production, we are not taught or trained to think in class terms i.e., to have class consciousness. If class is mentioned at all it is usually deployed to point out an individual’s identity and status i.e., in the non-Marxist sense. Class is typically thought of as either based on income or status/identity i.e., if someone is blue collared or white collared. It is a common misconception to think of class as just another identity that exists along the different axes and vectors of oppression. In popular parlance, when one talks about a working-class identity one commonly conceives of a white male with a hardhat working on the construction site. While a white male in a hardhat is indeed within the working class, this view is problematic in two senses. First, it ignores how labor/the working class has increasingly been feminized and racialized (Sanmiguel-Valderrama 2007). Secondly, by treating “the working-class” as just another identity alongside gender and race is faulty from a Marxist perspective which sees class as one’s objective relationship to the means of production (see Heideman 2019 for more on all of this). This objective conception of class simply means that on one side there exists the capitalist class which owns and controls the means of production, and on the other side the working class who own nothing but their ability to work and who work within a workplace that is controlled and dominated by the capitalist class. Class from this perspective is understood as a social relation of power (Zweig 2005). 

Obviously, in the capitalist mode of production, capitalists have a lot of “power to” (Glassman 2003). Capital has the power to appropriate surplus product, dictate what is produced within the production process and how, and by what pace. However, as Glassman (2003, 682) points out nicely, “[c]apitalists are not the only actors who can exercise ‘power to.’ Workers, though less empowered than capitalists because of their specific positions within processes of surplus value production and appropriation, also possess structural power in their collective ability to provide or withhold labor.” The inert power workers have exists at all times, even in eras of global working-class defeat and retreat, workers can shut the production and labor process down. In relation to the question of racism, the working class can use their power to fight racism through their latent power and ability to stop the production process. In order to end “extra-economic”-based oppressions the power of capital must be struggled against by with the latent power the working-class has (Heideman 2019; Wood 2002). For example, stopping production (i.e., striking) can be deployed as a method to fight against racism, sexism, heteronormativity, etc. 

Raju Das (2012, 31) lays out clearly the power class analysis and a class perspective can provide for social movements: 

Class analysis necessarily says that: class is the most important cause, and condition for, major global problems…and that workers and semi-proletarians who suffer from these problems have the power to fundamentally transcend the system to solve these problems. Class analysis includes in it the idea of the possibility and the necessity of abolition of class and its replacement with optimal direct-democratic control on the part of the proletariat and semi-proletarian workers over society’s resources and political affairs, at local, national and global scale. Class is about power, which is rooted in the control over productive forces including labor. Class analysis articulates and performs this power.

As the reader can see, Marxists point out the objective nature of class out at nauseam (e.g., Foley 2018; Heideman 2019), but they have done so within the confines of the nation-state scale of the United States and tend to ignore or downplay global scale race relations, in particular the race relations involved in contemporary imperialism. 

A Historical Materialist Understanding of Racism in the Age of Imperialism

Even within the anti-Marxist early 2000s Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2002) argued that we still need the historical materialist method to understand racism. Historical materialism is Marx’s method of understanding historical and contemporary social formations. This method seeks to explicate what is historically specific about a dominant mode of production within a particular social formation (Ollman 1993). It is a common misconception that Marx ignored race, gender and other forms of oppression, but this is certainly false especially if one examines his more historical work (see Anderson 2010 79-114 for Marx’s writings on race, slavery, and US Civil War). A mode of production can be briefly defined as the “complex unity” (Althusser 2014) between the productive forces (i.e., means of production and labor-power) and relations of production, which Bettelheim (1975, 55) defines as a “system of positions assigned to agents of production in relation to the principal means of production.” Non-economistic Marxists like Lenin, Mao, etc., emphasize that the relations of production play the determining role in shaping the mode of production (Althusser 2014). On top of the mode of production arises a political and cultural superstructure that works in dialectical relation/tension with the economic base (mode of production). Social change occurs do this dialectical relation with the economic base (see Marx 1979). This historical materialist method allows us to see the historically specific form racism takes on in particular modes of production, and even within different forms of the capitalist mode of production. Understanding the specific forms racism takes in particular historical is essential if one wants to successfully struggle against racism. Ellen Meiksins Wood (2002, 282) points out that 

Capitalism will always have a working class, and it will always produce underclasses, whatever their extra-economic identity. It can adopt to changing conditions by changing the meaning of race and ethnicity, so that one group can displace another at the bottom of the ladder (as Hispanic groups have in some cases replaced African-Americans); or the boundaries of racial categories can, if necessary, be redrawn.

This othered “underclass” that Wood points to can exist on many different scales and not just within the nation-state scale of the Unites States. In the era of imperialism and global capitalism, the underclass are the oppressed nationalities who are struggling for self-determination against the global imperialist class camp (i.e., the US, Europe, and Japan). This will be explored more below. First, I must lay out how to understand racism as a historical materialist i.e., how it functions within the “complex social whole” (McNally 2017). 

In Black Marxism Cedric Robinson (1983) critiqued Eurocentric Marxists for ignoring the Black Radical Tradition, and for not paying close enough attention to how logics of racism structures capitalism itself. Robinson emphasizes that ideas of race and otherness is culturally ingrained in European Civilization itself and thus precedes the development of the capitalist mode of production and in turn structures it. However, the form racism changes within different modes of production. Racism adapts “to the political and material exigencies of the moment” as Robinson (1983, 66) himself says. Thus, we must understand the “political and material exigencies” of the unipolar imperialist era (Becker and Puryear 2015). To help through this the relations of production need be thought of in a non-economistic way. The relations of production are traditionally thought of as class relations (see above). However, in order to think of race as being integral to the social whole of the capitalist mode of production is to consider race relations as being a component of the relations of production that help reproduce capitalist relations of exploitation and oppression on an extended scale (see also Bhattacharya 2017).  When the capitalist mode of emerges on the historical scene it emerges in an already existing racialized European social formation. At first it incorporates the existing racial relations and ideologies, but as the capitalist mode of production becomes the dominant mode of production in the social formation it totally transforms them to serve the interest of capitalist relations of exploitation and oppression because capital is “coercive relation” and bends all social relations to its will (Marx 1990, 425). Capitalism and the new race relations/ideologies that develop become inseparable from each other and cannot function without each other (see also McNally 2017). Understanding racism (and also sexism, heteronormativity, etc) as existing within the relations of production themselves allows one to understand the “distributions of power throughout a structure” along different forms of oppression such as race. (Gilmore 2002, 17). 

In order to explicate this historical-materialist view we turn to W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois (1933) is able to show clearly the particular form racial relations of production take on in the monopoly/imperialist era of the capitalist mode of production. Here he lays out two material factors that produce and reproduce racism within the white labor movement during this particular form of the capitalist mode of production (monopoly/imperialist). Firstly, he talks about the development of a labor aristocracy that began to emerge in the monopoly era of capitalism and through the class struggle itself. In this era, Du Bois (1933, 6) says that “a new class of technical engineers and managers has arisen forming a working-class aristocracy” who “have deposits in savable banks and small holdings in stocks and bonds.” These kind of investments and material vested interests in the capitalist system give rise to “capitalistic ideology” which is ingrained in the heads labor aristocracy. Du Bois (1933, 6-7) says that these “engineers and the saving better-paid workers form a new petty bourgeois class, whose interests are bound up with those of the capitalists and antagonistic to those of common labor.” This labor aristocracy is a direct consequence of monopoly/imperialist phase of capitalism.

Secondly, in the era of monopoly capitalism (i.e., imperialism) we see “the extension of the world market” through “imperial expanding industry” which has produced a “world-wide new proletariat of colored workers.” The capitalists are able to bribe “the white worker by high wages, visions of wealth and opportunity” to fight militarily, politically, and economically against colored workers across the world, i.e., to serve the interests of the imperialist-capitalist class. As Du Bois (1933, 7) says: “Soldiers and sailors from the white workers are used to keep ‘darkies’ in their ‘places.’ Imperialist war and racism are inseparable and are two sides of the same coin and are produced and reproduced by global imperialist class camp. The othered underclass in the monopoly/imperialist era of capitalism is indeed the oppressed nationalities across the world (and within the US) who are constantly targeted by the global imperialist class camp. To make this more concrete, the police departments that terrorize, murder, and target people of color in the US purchase weapon surpluses from the US military! This displays clearly a direct connection between people of color within the US nation-state and oppresses nationalities that US imperialism oppresses. 

Marx and Engels (1978, 474, my emphasis) say in the Manifesto: “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with clash antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.” Thinking about racism in this sense, as being a part of the relations of production helps us see that racism is an integral part in reproducing the capitalist system as a whole. Racism has been so completely transformed and integrated by the capitalist mode of production that one cannot imagine ending racism without struggling against the capitalist system. Mao said: “Racism is a product of colonialism and imperialism. Only by overthrowing the capitalist class and destroying colonialism and imperialism [can complete emancipation be won]” (quoted in Kelley 2008, 100-101) Additionally, because “[w]age-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers,” racism plays a fundamental role in maintaining the class power of capital by continuing to divide workers along racial lines (Marx and Engels 1978, 483). At least for me, it is clear that racism does not just exist in air in the superstructure but is produced and reproduced in the mode of production itself. If the structural and root causes of racism are superseded, then overtime—through more political struggle—so will all micro-forms of racism (e.g., racist language).

The Nation-State still matters! Imperialism still exists!

From many different theoretical frameworks/positions the nation-state is seen as inherently problematic for being racist and perpetuating settler colonialism (e.g., A. Smith 2012; Anthias 2018). “Post-colonial” scholars who emphasize decolonization argue that decolonization is impossible within the confines of the nation-state as it is a colonial European invention. Even scholars focused on solving climate change are critical and skeptical of the nation-state in regards to creating a global post-carbon energy regime, and for obvious and important reasons (see Mann and Wainwright 2019). Additionally, many argue that imperialism, understood from the Leninist tradition, no longer exists in the contemporary post-Soviet world. For example, Hardt and Negri (2000, 9), who many draw from, say: 

we think it is important to note that what used to be conflict or competition among several imperialist powers has in important respects been replaced by the idea of a single power that overdetermines them all, structures them in a unitary way, and treats them under one common notion of right that is decidedly postcolonial and postimperialist. This is really the point of departure for our study of Empire: a new notion of right, or rather, a new inscription of authority.

This is only half correct. We are indeed living in world where there is no longer the type of inter-imperialist rivalry that characterized the WWI and WWII eras, but that does not mean in any sense that we are living in a “postimperialist” world where the nation-state no longer matters. Rather, we are currently just in a new phase of imperialism, namely a unipolar era of imperialism (see Becker and Puryear 2015), in which the United States is the global hegemonic leader. Since the collapse of the former USSR, the United States has become the hegemonic leader on a global scale. In this era every newly independent nationalist country has to play by the rules that the United States has set through so-called international political-economic apparatuses. Countries have to try to arise in a global political economic system dominated by the interests of the United States. This creates serious limits for what specific countries can do. Cuba, for example, has chosen to maintain its socialist political economic system at the continued expense of the embargo enforced by the US. Evo Morales was just overthrown by a coup that was funded and supported by the United States for being a leader who does not want to play by the rules that the United States enforces through different “international” political/economic apparatuses. The development of the UN, NATO, EU, etc., does not mark an end of nation-state rule and “toward a new notion of global order.” The UN is an “international” organization that, in the last instance, represents and perpetuates the interests of the US, western Europe, and Japan. 

Nation-states still matter for global capital. The rules and regulations needed for continued capital accumulation are largely enforced by nation-states themselves, not a decentralized Empire. In addition, the nation-state still matters in regard to resisting imperialism and racism, especially in the imperial core of the United States. Nation-states and the apparatuses of nation-states can be seized and used for successfully struggling against imperialism and racism. The faulty idea that we are living in a decentralized global Empire makes it seem that capitalism so ubiquitous and penetrating it cannot be directly opposed, that there are no alternatives. 

Kelley and Betsy (2008) in a chapter titled “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution” shows how oppressed nations constructed political solidarity with each other that functioned on an international scale, but was also made possible because one oppressed nation was able to take power on the nation-state scale, and used the power gained from doing so to spread anti-racist working-class power outside its own nation-state. In the 1960s the Black Nationalist movement in the United States had close political-ideological ties with the Chinese Communist Party, and Mao Zedong and other Maoists more specifically. It is commonly known that the Black Panthers would sell Mao’s book of quotations i.e., “the little red book” to fund themselves, but this is only the surface appearance of the connection Maoists in China had with the Black Panthers and groups like Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). As Kelley and Betsy (2008, 103) point out, Maoism was not exported from China to the Black Nationalist movement. Rather, “[m]ost black radicals of the late 1950s and early 1960s discovered China by way of anti- colonial struggles in Africa and the Cuban revolution.” The example of national liberation/communist struggles taking state power on the nation-scale inspired oppressed nationalities within the United States. Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought provided the theoretical foundations on which to view nationalism relatively. Nationalism from the oppressor nation is reactionary, but nationalism from oppressed nations is revolutionary and necessary. Revolutionary nationalism of an oppressed nation is “proletarian in content, national in form” as Harry Haywood (1978) says. In fact, the RAM argued that black nationalism “‘is really internationalism.’ Only by demolishing white nationalism and white power can liberation be achieved for everyone. Not only will national boundaries be eliminated with the ‘‘dictatorship of the Black Underclass,’’ but ‘‘the need for nationalism in its aggressive form will be eliminated’’ (Kelley and Betsy 2008, 115-116). 

Conclusion: Towards an Anti-Racist Working-Class Strategy

Asad Haider (2018, 61) tells the story about Harry Haywood’s critique of the CPUSA as it became increasingly conservative in the post-World War II years. Throughout the first half of the 20th century the CPUSA was at the forefront of anti-racist/black liberation struggles both politically and theoretically (see Kelley 2002). However, as the CPUSA became more conservative, the Party “distanced itself from the project of black liberation,” and white chauvinism increased within the Party. Haider (2018, 61) points out that the Party had previously been able to combat white chauvinism and racism effectively “through mass antiracist organizing: by joining different people and disparate demands in a common struggle.” After this practice ceased, the “party launched what Haywood called a ‘phony war against white chauvinism’…In Haywood’s analysis, this phony war only ended up strengthening the foundations of white chauvinism, now uprooted from its structural foundations and seen a free-floating set of ideas” (Haider 2018, 61). Harry Haywood argued that a better strategy to fight white chauvinism in the party is to reaffirm the “division of labor among communists in relation to the national question. This division of labor, long ago established in our party and the international communist movement, places main responsibility for combatting white chauvinism on the white comrades, with Blacks having main responsibility for combating narrow nationalist deviations” (Haywood quoted in Haider 2018, 61-62). 

A “phony war” (i.e., one that plays into the logics of the dominant ideology and structures) against racism must be avoided. Given what has been said above, the strategy I propose to fight racism, imperialism, and capitalism is to perpetuate what Asad Haider (2018, 108-114) calls “insurgent universalism.” Insurgent universalism “says we are not passive victims but active agents of a politics that demands freedom for everyone” (Haider 2018, 109). It is a universality that “necessarily confronts and opposes capitalism” (Haider 2018, 113). It is a universality that “is created and recreated in the act of insurgency, which does not demand emancipation solely for those who share my identity but for everyone; it says no one will be enslaved” (Haider 2018, 113). The working class can use its power within the realm of production to not only struggle against capital in the economic sense, but also against all “extra-economic” oppressions that exist within the global imperialist-capitalist social whole. We need to fight for the strangers who are being targeted by the global imperialist class camp. We may not know “the other” that is being targeted by US imperialism, we may even have some preconceived notions of that “other” through the media ideological state apparatus (e.g., demonization), however, and despite this we must principally be against any form of US intervention in sovereign nations. Being anti-racist means being anti-imperialist at the same time! Self-determination for all oppressed nationalities!

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The Miseducation of the US Left: Bernie Sanders, Social Democracy, and Left Chauvinism

By Joshua Briond

I first learned about socialism in 2015. To this day I remember exactly how it happened: I was tweeting about the prospects of the presidential election and a mutual asked me, “have you heard about Bernie Sanders?” At the time, I hadn’t. Shocked when she heard this, she told me that “his principles remind me a lot of yours, I think you’d like him.” Then, another mutual of mine cut in on our conversation and said the exact words: “ew, he’s a socialist.” At the time I didn’t know what the word “socialism” meant, so I decided to do some research in order not to respond ignorantly. What I found in my quick Google search was the following definition: “A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Alongside that basic premise is, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This sort of language resonated with me immediately. I couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly be against an ideological framework that empowers and centers working-class people. 

From a five-minute Google search Bernie Sanders had earned my vote. Everything I read about him just made me like him more. He was everything. Consistent. Progressive. Genuine. He even marched with the late great Martin Luther King Jr. Inspiring! At that time, Bernie seemed to represent an alternative to the bourgeois (wealthy, privileged) establishment politics that I had always resented, even when I lacked the language to sufficiently articulate my distaste for it. After this point, I became fascinated with the tendencies and ideology of socialism, but also angered by the fact I had only just learned of it. Why did we not learn this in school? I continued reading and studying—specifically from Black and brown revolutionaries and theorists—and as a result, became more radicalized. My reading pushed me to the point where I found myself imagining a world and movement beyond the coercive nature of Western electoral politics and the stifling ideology of the ‘lesser of two evils.’ Such an ideology, that is so historically prevalent in the United States, in which we’ve seen in the past century or two have not achieved many, if any, gains for marginalized people. It was during this intensive period of reading and study that I began to connect the dots to what we’re seeing happening in our modern socio-political moment to historical events of the past.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but rather individuals and classes repeat history. Especially when subjects (disguised as “citizens”) of historical violence are ignorant of historical precedents, wilfully or unknowingly, which take the form of tactics cyclically used by our subjectors. I believe we’re in one of those moments where everything we’re seeing has quite literally happened before, and if we’re not careful—if we’re not meticulous and militant in our approach to addressing our material actualities, we will be bamboozled into accepting less than not only what we deserve, but less than what we NEED for survival; and all in the name of short term “progress.”

The socio-political moment we find ourselves in reminds me a lot of what I have studied about the Great Depression of the 1930s and its aftermath in which the rejection of capitalism had become increasingly common, socially acceptable, and a threat to the American social, political, and economic order. Much like the 1930s, capitalism’s contradictions and racialized violence have once again become too blatant to disguise. During that era, membership in socialist and communist parties in the US soared; however, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (commonly known as FDR) appeals to the left barred attempts at achieving a sustainable third party or revolutionary left-wing ideological movement. FDR was incredibly skilled at (mis)appropriating radical language in order to deliberately co-opt the rhetoric and demands of radical left-wing oppositional organizations, parties, and individuals who fought for greater freedom and self-determination of working peoples.

Similar to what occurred with FDR and the New Deal coalition during the 1930s, the likes of Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are attempting to inaugurate a renewed movement of “progressive” Democrats. While this is championed by many as something worthy of celebration—as “progress,” what we are seeing in real time is the liberalization and hollowing out of terms like “abolition,” “resistance,” and “revolution,” amongst others. What this amounts to is a deliberate means of (mis)appropriating and ultimately watering down radical language and movements. Sanders et al, have mastered this sleight of hand in a way not seen in decades. Lamentably, this has successfully fooled many Americans into thinking he, and others, are in fact, radicals and/or socialists.

“Progressive” politicians wield words, slogans, and even ideologies, widely associated with the radical tradition—especially the Black radical tradition, when in actuality all they want is what has already been achieved by most wealthy “developed” countries; a gentleman's reformation of the inherently oppressive institutions that they claim to be against. Given that, exactly how radical can what they are proposing be?

Millions of Americans prefer social democracy, but of course, this really just means welfare state policies to improve material conditions, such as: universal healthcare, cheap and/or free education, etc—without much of an understanding of where the money will come from to fund these domestic advances, beyond simply through “taxes.” Sanders often draws comparisons between the type of political economy he and many of his supporters want with Nordic countries. But rarely is it mentioned that Bernie’s beloved Nordic countries, that he seeks to mimic, not only have a wide ranging Nazi movements on the rise, eerily similar to the US, but their ostensibly nice mix of capitalism and socialism, as its commonly and erroneously described, is becoming increasingly more traditionally capitalist, by the hour; as well as the fact that this welfare state model is sustained through colonial legacies and imperialist endeavours of oppressing, destabilizing, pillaging, and bombing people in oppressed, third-world, and global-south countries. Why are all the nations that Bernie Sanders seeks to imitate in the US majority white and imperialist when there are nations, such as Cuba and China, who’ve statistically achieved equal, and even greater material gains—especially for their most marginalized populations—without the pillaging of non-white countries?

Social democracy and western conception(s) of democratic socialism, like all forms of liberalism, seek to preserve capitalism under the guise of “lessening” or “reforming” its structural violences, are truly just materializations of anti-communism, with a perpetuation of cold-war tactics in which the task is to further prevent radical upheaval from subjects of colonial, imperialist, and capitalist rule. 

Even the new wing of Democratic Party progressives’ advocation of the Green New Deal legislation that aims to “address climate change” was stolen from the Green Party and stripped of its anti-imperialist and anti-militarization elements. It also still seeks to prioritize profit and markets—despite the ecological demand for radical change pending human induced climate extinction—in typical white supremacist, capitalist, and imperialist Democrat Party fashion—which more than anything should tell us all we need to know about the modern green movements in the West, those of which do not prioritized the eradication of capitalism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism. All western economies are sustained through immense financial and technological surplus amassed through serial racialized exploitation, as evidenced by the most recent military coup d’état in socialist Bolivia, ousting the socialist administration, disguised as being “pro-democracy”—which is really just a materialization of modern colonialism and further indigenous genocide. It’s no secret that Bolivia’s lithium reserves, a chemical element that’ll be used to propel the United States’  “green capitalism” pipe dreams and idealizations, and President Evo Morales’ intention to industrialize and nationalize this valuable commodity, led to his unjust militaristic political demise at the hands of the US—which Bernie, amongst other “progressive” democrats only rhetorically and seemingly reluctantly condemned. 

Though he was violently anti-Semitic and ideologically fascistic in multiple ways, FDR is almost universally recognized as the United States’ most left-wing president; which says more of the inherently right-wing nature of the American political stratosphere, historically and presently, than any political ideology FDR aligned himself with. Bernie Sanders, to me, is the modern Franklin D. Roosevelt, or at least they represent the same thing, historically, in the face of capitalist contradictions being on full display. Though far better on race than FDR, Bernie’s continued failures on the issues of race and foreign policy/imperialism cannot be denied or ignored. Whether if it’s in regard to addressing Black people and the question of reparations, being an unapologetic liberal Zionist, or calling democratically-elected indigenous socialist leader(s) and governments, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, “dictator(ships)” and “authoritarian,” both of which are heavily racialized terms with imperialist connotations and are only ever used to describe non-white countries and leaders who do not subscribe to Western notions of “democracy” or bow down to the demands of the West. It’s no secret that Bernie Sanders, or any “liberal” or “progressive” politician, wouldn’t dare call the United States of America a “dictator(ship)” and/or “authoritarian,” despite it being one. So how does the US manage to maintain its legitimacy as a “democracy” and “beacon of hope and freedom,” when it terrorizes, imprisons, and kills its political dissidents—both domestically and abroad—incarcerates more people than entire countries combined, and is by far the greatest violator of human rights the world has ever seen?

It’s very easy to be ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ on most domestic social issues, as the modern progressive movement has shown. Where a person starts exposing their self and their true ideologies is when they express how they truly feel about non-western and non-white leaders and countries who’ve been deemed ‘enemy’ states by the US ruling class, as a means of warmongering. This has been demonstrated clearly by Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’ve directly contributed to the demonization of non-white and non-western countries under imperialist attack, as a means of separating themselves from the Other, as well as these countries’ conceptions and materializations of socialism (authentic economic democracy)—as well as pledging their loyalty to the American hegemony. The level of western chauvinism that has remained unchecked, as a result of Sanders’ rise and role in the miseducation of the left, clearly displays the reality in which democratic socialism—which is largely misunderstood in the west as an extension of social democracy and “welfare statism.” The miseducation of the left has, by no mistake, led to a “left-wing” movement that is motivated and intrigued by the prospects of maintaining the settler-colonial and imperialist project that is the United States and its colonies, while granting its citizens healthcare, education, and greenifying consumption, with its blood dollars that are attained off the backs of colonized and oppressed people in the global South. 

One of the more common materializations of left-wing chauvinism is when it comes to issues of war and imperialism. Bernie Sanders and his supporters, as a result of his mass influence, take the form of their reinforcing imperialist narratives regarding oppressed countries and leaders, under the guise of “nuance.” However, this materializes as inaction and complacency from those in the imperial core in the face of imperialist, settler-colonial, and capitalist violence—which ultimately leads to an acceptance of western intervention in oppressed countries. And then, for the sake of maintaining legitimacy as self-proclaimed “radicals” and/or “leftists,” left-wing chauvinists argue, contradictorily, that in spite of their ideological alignment to these imperialist narratives—used to justify the racialized terrorizing and destabilization of these countries—intervention should somehow still be opposed. We’ve witnessed this in regard to the dominant rhetoric surrounding the DPRK and Kim Jong Un, China and the CPC/Xi Jinping, Syria and Bashar al-Assad, Venezuela and Presidents Chavez and Maduro, or more recently, Bolivia and President Morales, etc. 

It is interesting that Sanders supporters are capable of recognizing mainstream media’s biases and contemptuousness toward Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar, and other new “left-wing” and “progressive” Democrats—which is fueled by Cold War and McCarthyist tactics and hysteria—even though, ideologically, they are not actual socialists. But will look to and reference these same mainstream media outlets for their information on non-white, non-western leaders and countries—countries who actually have socialist leaders, governments, and economies and/or are subject to US imperialist aggression. The connection and contradiction that should easily be recognized is this: if the US media is going this far to delegitimize politicians, who are at best liberal reformists and/or social democrats and basically of the same fundamental political alignment as the US ruling class, imagine how far it will go to demonize and delegitimize actual socialist leaders and countries who represent a legitimate threat to global capitalism, western imperialism and hegemony.

What has become increasingly evident to me over the last few years, specifically, is how much Bernie Sanders’ rise and the modern popularity of social democracy masking itself as [democratic] socialism—though effective in moving millions of people away from centrism and establishment politics and rule—has created a moment of opportunism, careerism, and political punditry masking itself as radical organizing and activism. A moment whose primary role is not just funnelling people back into the arms of the Democratic Party; but also miseducating the masses regarding what socialism actually entails, beyond welfare-state policies and electoralism. There’s been so much talk about the “mainstreaming of socialism” while the whitewashing and watering down of the ideals inherent within a socialist politic remains deliberate as a means of delegitimizing and co-opting the actualities of what building socialism would actually entail. Socialism is not something that can be implemented through policy or mixed in with capitalism. Bernie knows this—especially in countries where every four to eight years another regressive and backward Republican or Democrat will arise and strip away all the “gains” and reforms, as per usual. That route will always fail because the two theoretical frameworks and ideologies of socialism + capitalism/imperialism are in direct and intrinsic contradiction with one another, as we are seeing within Northern Europe. 

I have pondered on the question—especially considering the outcome of the 2016 election, in which Clinton’s emails were leaked and it was proven the DNC and Hillary Clinton collaborated on the rigging of the election against him—“why won’t Sanders just run as an independent?” But I’ve come to the realization that it's because he’s not an independent. He’s a Democrat, and he’s very much interested in maintaining the interests of the imperialist and capitalist Democratic Party—regardless of how violent they continue to be—but also, maintaining the Democratic Party’s (and the two-party system’s) illegitimate and unjust rule. FDR, too, wanted to transfer the Democratic Party into an ideologically progressive party and sought the help of socialist and communist parties—much like Sanders has done with organizations like DSA. They recognized that radical organizations and individuals needed to feel a part of his political entourage in order to preserve the interests of American capitalism through the Democratic Party. 

FDR succeeded in his role of delegitimizing and co-opting the revolutionary left-wing movement of his time, during arguably the most quintessential and crucial socio-political moment since World War I.  The result of this co-optation: Communist Parties saw a drastic decline in support during the 1940 elections. And after getting elected, FDR explicitly ignored the struggles and concerns from the groups and constituencies that were instrumental in getting him [re]elected, and instead collaborated with the conservative wing of the capitalist ruling class. Consequently, the US emerged from the Great Depression as the most anti-socialist and criminally capitalist country in the world.

Undeniably, Bernie Sanders has been targeted with red-scare tactics by elements of the US ruling class and its media. In 2019, we’re still seeing these same tactics being used against him—with the liberal, ruling-class media as the culprit—that were used in the 2016 election. Democrats are going to do everything in their power to prevent even the slightest glimpse of “progressivism” in their party, even if it means sliding further into fascism—which is an indictment of the mediocrity and ineptitude of their party leadership, as the self-proclaimed party of the people. FDR noticed in the 1930s the best route to preserving capitalism is providing citizens in the imperialist core (US) with crumbs of loot gained through colonial and capitalist exploitation and rule throughout the world, as a means of keeping them complicit in their subjugation—making their material conditions comfortable enough to prevent social upheaval, or in other words: revolution.

Regardless of who you’re voting for in the 2020 presidential election, your vote will inevitably be casted for the next global terrorist-in-chief. The next president—whether domestically “progressive” or not—like all presidents, both past and present, is going to cast racialized terror on oppressed and colonized people everywhere. But my goal here isn’t to discourage individuals from voting. I’m simply uninterested in that. My job is to provide the facts and highlight the historical precedence as it relates to the critical socio-political moment we find ourselves in. The progressives, often white, who peddle harmfully held sentiments such as “we just need to elect Bernie, because he’s the best we’ve got and revolution isn’t possible right now” are no different than the white moderates who told us to “wait our turn” in the 1960s – those who Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Baldwin warned us about. 

Much like FDR, whether deliberately or not, Bernie Sanders’ movement, or “political revolution,” as he describes it, is here to preserve capitalism and imperialism, by any means necessary.

The Ballot and the Bullet: Building Socialism in ‘America’s Backyard’

By Matthew Dolezal

When faced with momentous external challenges — be they Spanish colonialism, American imperialism, or devastating hurricanes — the Cuban people have consistently risen to the occasion. In response to ongoing internal challenges, the popular new Cuban constitution (which took effect in April) entrenches the solid Marxist-Leninist foundation of the island’s socialist state while updating the 1976 constitution to better reflect the modern post-Cold War period.

Under the new constitution, each presidential term is five years, with a limit of two consecutive terms in office for those who serve. In addition, the role of Head of State is divided between the president and the newly established office of prime minister.

Other new rights and policies include the presumption of innocence in criminal cases, the right to legal counsel, and the (heavily regulated) use of private property and foreign investment to stimulate the economy (particularly to offset the revenue lost as a result of the continued U.S. blockade).

Despite the many exciting modernizations articulated by this fresh new document, much remains the same. Cuba’s Communist Party is still in only political party legally allowed to operate, and the state continues to control the land and means of production. The news media cannot be privatized, and, according to the new Magna Carta, Cuba will never return to the exploitative, pre-revolutionary capitalist system.

Bourgeois historians and pundits often glibly frame successful socialist governments as “authoritarian.” But from a materialist perspective, the vanguard party serves to protect the achievements of the proletarian revolution — including universal healthcare, education, housing, subsidized food, and land reform — from reactionary and imperialist threats (such as the CIA-backed coup Ernesto “Che” Guevara witnessed in Guatemala prior to the Cuban Revolution). In addition to the Communist Party’s general success, apologists for Western capitalism now have to grapple with the fact that significant democratic processes are occurring within Cuba’s one-party system.

The process to draft a new constitution began in August of 2018 and included the input of millions of Cuban citizens. Assemblies throughout the island were established, and thousands of “standard proposals” were debated for three months. In all, the old constitution faced 760 modifications. The proposed constitution was then featured in a referendum that took place on February 24, 2019. With massive voter turnout, the new constitution was easily passed when more than 85% voted “yes.”

Based on the long-standing solidarity between Cuba and its Latin American ally Venezuela, this recent constitutional process undertaken by the Caribbean nation may have been inspired by Venezuela’s ongoing Bolivarian Revolution. After the 1998 election of the popular Venezuelan revolutionary Hugo Chávez, the formerly discarded masses were not only lifted out of poverty, but politically empowered through a nation-wide upsurge in grassroots democracy.

As historian Greg Grandin wrote in 2013,

“Chávez’s social base was diverse and heterodox, what social scientists in the 1990s began to celebrate as ‘new social movements,’ distinct from established trade unions and peasant organizations vertically linked to — and subordinated to — political parties or populist leaders: neighborhood councils; urban and rural homesteaders, feminists, gay and lesbian rights organizations, economic justice activists, environmental coalitions; breakaway unions and the like. It’s these organizations, in Venezuela and elsewhere throughout the region, that have over the last few decades done heroic work in democratizing society, in giving citizens venues to survive the extremes of neoliberalism and to fight against further depredations, turning Latin America into one of the last global bastion of the Enlightenment left.”

Shortly after Chávez was inaugurated, Venezuelan citizens voted to replace their 1961 constitution with a new document that “expanded the rights of all Venezuelans, formally recognized the rights and privileges of historically marginalized groups, reorganized government institutions and powers, and highlighted the government’s responsibility in working towards participatory democracy and social justice.” This Bolivarian constitution includes mechanisms by which the document can be revised by the people through nation-wide participatory democracy. In 2007, for example, a series of constitutional reforms were debated for 47 days at more than 9,000 public events before a referendum finally took place.

At the height of the American civil rights movement, charismatic black liberation leader Malcolm X issued a powerful ultimatum — “the ballot or the bullet” — in his famous 1964 speech. The metaphor of the proverbial “ballot” and “bullet” can be useful in recognizing both the political and the physical dimensions of socialist struggle. A historical example of these two seemingly disparate themes merging was the short-lived alliance between Chile (“the ballot”) and Cuba (“the bullet”) in the early 1970s, iconically symbolized when revolutionary leader Fidel Castro gifted a personalized AK-47 to democratically-elected socialist president Salvador Allende.

But movements do not have to choose between these two options exclusively. Broadly speaking, Venezuela’s revolution emerged through the ballot box and was later protected through armed defense, whereas Cuba’s revolution was itself an armed struggle that would later evolve through ballot initiatives and grassroots democracy.

The ongoing Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions are impressive enough by themselves, but the material conditions they arose from and the hardships they have endured make them utterly awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, socialism doesn’t develop in a vacuum. It doesn’t grow in a petri dish. Building international socialism brings with it the baggage of constant imperialist assaults aimed at exploiting labor and extracting resources on behalf of global capital.

Now a spectre is haunting Washington — the spectre of the Monroe Doctrine. In its belligerent re-imagining of the 19th century foreign policy staple, the Trump administration has demonized and attacked the sovereignty of both Cuba and Venezuela. In conjunction with a new round of economic sanctions against the so-called “troika of tyranny”, former National Security Advisor and Bush-era war criminal John Bolton claimed last April that the “Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”

Bolton also announced that the U.S. would reintroduce the Helms-Burton Act — a 1996 law that allows American citizens to file claims related to properties that were nationalized after the Cuban Revolution. However, as Dr. Arturo Lopez-Levy opined, “It is not the United States government’s responsibility or place to force the […] Cuban government to prioritize compensating Cuban right-wing exiles over demands for other reparations, such as for slavery or any of the many other abuses committed in Cuban history before or after 1959.” Furthermore, as author Saul Landau observed, “By 1991, […] the Castro government had settled claims with most of the nations whose properties it had confiscated and offered terms to U.S. companies as well.”

In addition, the Trump administration began restricting U.S. travel to the island in June and revived the half-century-long economic blockade that was briefly loosened under the Obama administration. These Cold War-inspired policies are certainly draconian, but it seems the American regime’s primary target is Cuba’s oil-rich ally across the Caribbean Sea. As John Bolton himself admitted, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

After winning the Venezuelan presidential election in May of 2018, Nicolás Maduro was sworn in on January 10, 2019 to begin his second term in office. Then, on January 22, Juan Guaidó — a man whom 81% of Venezuelans had never heard of — suddenly declared himself “interim president.” Although Guaidó did not run in any presidential election, American politicians and pundits quickly praised this brazen U.S.-backed coup attempt, some even insisting “this is our backyard!” Washington’s latest regime-change effort in the Bolivarian Republic has thus far failed, but the Trump administration’s brutal economic sanctions have killed an estimated 40,000 Venezuelans in just one year.

Despite this rampant imperialism, there have been notable solidarity efforts — both between Cuba and Venezuela as well as internationally. However, in its overall capacity for both relevant material analysis and tangible solidarity, the American Left has gone astray. Steve Stiffler contends that the U.S. Left’s failure to properly frame Chavismo allowed right-wing propaganda to gain control of the narrative. This defeat in the realm of discourse led not only to the empowerment of far-right forces on the ground in Venezuela, but to a diminishment of the socialist support from within the empire that was once reliable.

An indispensable historical model we should look to for guidance is the Venceremos Brigade. In 1969, a group of young American radicals volunteered their manual labor to assist with Cuba’s sugar harvest in the wake of the crippling U.S. embargo. This primary delegation to the island included 216 brigadistas who helped cut sugar cane for six weeks. Since then, the Venceremos (“we shall overcome”) Brigade spearheaded solidarity efforts between Americans and Cubans, bringing in more than 10,000 people to engage in agricultural work, construction, and other projects. Former brigadista Diana Block recently recounted, “I had traveled to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade in 1977. At that time many radical U.S. political organizations looked to Cuba, and other global anti-colonial struggles, for inspiration and direction. Following Cuba’s lead, international solidarity was recognized as a key organizing principle.”

During my brief trip to Havana last summer I toured Museo de la Revolución, which was still a work in progress. A sizable mural of Fidel speaking to a crowd rested against a banister as workers on scaffolds renovated the neighboring room. After examining the intriguing exhibits, I browsed the items in the gift shop and came across a concise booklet entitled Notes on Che Guevara’s Ideas on Pedagogy by Linda Martí, Ph.D. In it, Martí emphasized the role of a humanistic philosophy in socialist society:

“Is humanism present in every daily decision made by every citizen of our country? Is this concept of a humanist conscience the basis of every analysis made of services, production, or education? Collectivism, as a new personality trait and an expression of humanism in interpersonal relations, was the object of study, inquiry, and experimentation of Che’s theory and praxis.”

Humanism — in an internationalist sense — can motivate the more privileged Western leftists among us to stand in solidarity with independent socialist projects of the Global South and denounce the neo-colonialist tendencies of the ruling classes. Our struggle, after all, is global. Whether utilizing the ballot, the bullet, or both, we should work toward the liberation of all people and consign Eurocentric rubbish like the Monroe Doctrine to the dustbin of history.

How Quebec’s Nationalist Movement Became the Spearhead of Racist Militancy

By Andre-Philippe Dore

Once at the vanguard of social justice struggles in Québec, the nationalist tendency is now one of the strongest components of the racist right-wing in the province. It has almost completely abandoned the fight for political and economic emancipation to concentrate on cultural politics, fighting against immigration, liberty of religion and other topics also cherished by the fascist right. While some would easily condemn nationalism in itself, going back into the history of Québec's fight for independence seems necessary to understand how Québec's liberation movement transformed itself into the reactionary force it is today.

Québec's independence struggle goes back to an old tradition of anti-British revolts like the Patriotes' rebellion of 1837-1838 or pamphleteers' writings from the early 1900s. Its golden age was situated in the 60s and 70s when groups of many horizons - from conservatives to communists - led the struggle up to a referendum in 1980 - which wasn't victorious.

The large array of pro-sovereignty groups was definitely left-leaning : at the far-left was the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), which had a complicated and utterly action-packed history. With ties to the Black Panthers, Algerian revolutionaries and Palestinian freedom fighters, the FLQ relied on guerrilla tactics - robbing banks, kidnapping government members and blowing up many symbols of British imperialism. Also in the left hemisphere was the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale which sometimes quoted Ho Chi Minh, used the term "socialist" without shame and fought side-by-side with unions against the Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie. Less well-known were other left-wing groups like the Action socialiste pour l'indépendance du Québec, Québec's Socialist Party or Andrée Ferretti's Front de libération populaire, all influenced by Marxist writers such as Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi.

However, there where other groups that did not want to be associated with the left-wing of the movement, for example the Alliance Laurentienne - a catholic party of intellectuals - or Gilles Grégoire's Ralliement national - a populist party formed by proponents of the social credit theory and dissidents of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale who did not want to be involved with a party ran by an agnostic, leftist homosexual. TheRalliement national would finally merge with the Mouvement souveraineté-association - a newly formed group with René Lévesque as its leader. Lévesque - a young rising star in left reformist politics - had just left the Liberal Party because its establishment refused to back Québec's plea for independence. He then went on to create the Parti Québécois (PQ) in 1968.

This new party would be the main vehicle for the official and electoral struggle for Québec's sovereignty. Even though Lévesque's point of view on the national question was pretty moderate as he favored the negotiation of a new deal with Canada's government instead of seceding right away - many members of the radical left joined the Parti Québécois. Formerly living in clandestinity because of its involvement with the FLQ, Pierre Vallières publicly joined the side of Lévesque's legal struggle, as Pierre Bourgault - leader of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale - already did, enjoining the 14 000 members of his party to do the same. For many intellectuals and activists, the Crise d'octobre - which saw the Canadian army invade the streets of Québec and jail almost anyone who actively supported Québec's independence- was a traumatic event, leading them to abandon radical militancy and join social-democrat struggles. Groups who advocated armed struggle for national liberation began to disappear as their members joined either anti-secession Maoist groups like En lutte! - led by the former FLQ member Charles Gagnon - or reformist parties and unions.

The PQ went from a marginal party - as he won only 7 seats during the election of 1970 - to forming the government in 1976. This electoral victory led to a referendum in 1980 which resulted in a win for the federalists since 59% of the voters chose the No option. The referendum question illustrated well the moderate turn of nationalist politics, as it was a nuanced and hesitating text. Against the left-leaning wing of the party, led by Jacques Parizeau - who had been throughout his life both sympathizer of a communist party and banker - opposed it, Lévesque and his party asked the following :

''Le Gouvernement du Québec a fait connaître sa proposition d'en arriver, avec le reste du Canada, à une nouvelle entente fondée sur le principe de l'égalité des peuples ; cette entente permettrait au Québec d'acquérir le pouvoir exclusif de faire ses lois, de percevoir ses impôts et d'établir ses relations extérieures, ce qui est la souveraineté, et, en même temps, de maintenir avec le Canada une association économique comportant l'utilisation de la même monnaie ; aucun changement de statut politique résultant de ces négociations ne sera réalisé sans l'accord de la population lors d'un autre référendum ; en conséquence, accordez-vous au Gouvernement du Québec le mandat de négocier l'entente proposée entre le Québec et le Canada ?"

Although the main voice for the nationalist camp in Québec's media was the PQ's , many initiatives were carried by other supporters of the Yes option. The referendum campaign saw the implication of members of the Communist Party of Québec, of the Combat socialiste's Trotskyists and other far-left activists. Another part of the left opposed that option however, for example the Nouveau Parti démocratique du Québec - a marginal social-democrat party who supported the unity of Canada.

After the defeat of the Yes option, René Lévesque and Claude Morin, an informant for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, proposed what they named « Beau risque ». This would lead the PQ to support the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party - who proposed a mix of free market and conservatism - since its leader Brian Mulroney promised to amend the Canadian constitution to give Québec a special status in it. Québec as a matter of fact never signed the Canadian constitution since it was forced upon the province by an agreement between all the other provinces' premiers, the Canadian premier Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, the British House of Commons and the Queen of England. Many members of the PQ - including progressive MPs like Jacques Parizeau, Camille Laurin and Louise Harel - left the party. The void created by this exodus gave the right wing of the party a more prominent role. Overtly capitalist and anti-union individuals like Lucien Bouchard came to be public figures of the nationalist struggle, leading to the creation of the Bloc Québécois which participated in federal elections as the main representative of the nationalist forces. While advocating left-leaning ideas from time to time to allure their remaining left-leaning base, the Bloc's staff was mostly composed of right-wing activists that were formerly members of the Canadian Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party.

With an even more moderate Lévesque apace with the right-wing Bouchard, the nationalist side never went to propose a deal to the federal government that would satisfy Québec's population and the other provinces'. Instead, the PQ went on to rule as a candid provincial government, even importing capitalist repression tactics usually withheld as the party was said to have a « préjugé favorable envers les travailleurs » (a favorable bias toward workingmen). As 1982 began, Lévesque's government cut in social programs, tried to lower the salaries of the state employees and went at war with unions, as it voted laws to forbid certain strikes that were supported by a large part of the population. Lévesque would retire in 1985 to see Jacques Parizeau make his comeback and take his place 2 years later. The new leadership of the PQ then refocused the party around its raison d'être : to liberate Québec from the colonialist state of Canada.

Parizeau worked with his new ally, Lucien Bouchard, until the 1995 referendum, which resulted in a victory for the No option with 50,58% of the vote. Parizeau - as promised - retired after this defeat and left the gate open for Bouchard to take the leadership of the PQ. Bouchard, as he became the new Premier of Québec, shamelessly favored right-wing policies by imposing austerity measures : he took stances against unions, reduced the growth of the minimum wage and allowed his friend Paul Desmarais to concentrate even more the media outlets of the province. Nowadays, Bouchard is still a zealot of capitalism. He often accused the Quebecers of not working enough while he - since 2011 - had been a lobbyist for an oil consortium, an advisor for the highest paid physicians in the province and a negotiator for a paper company on behalf of the government (he was paid half a million for this last job).

As he went on with his plan to put Québec's independence on the back burner and concentrate on reducing the state spending by 10%, left-wing nationalists, socialists, feminists and alter-globalization militants formed groups that would later merge to create Québec solidaire - a left electoral party who supports Québec's emancipation from Canada. The PQ's change of reign in the 2000s would not rehabilitate the party for these numerous activists who disliked the politics of Lucien Bouchard just as much as those of his successor Bernard Landry - a bourgeois par excellence who became Premier in 2001. Leftists fled the party throughout the decade, while those staying in the organization claimed that other parties were only there to ruin the cause of Québec's liberation since they divided the nationalist vote.

It took up until 2012 for the PQ to be reelected with 31.95% of the popular vote. The student strike which lasted well over 100 days earlier that year permitted Pauline Marois to become Premier, as she supported the student cause and promised to cancel the tuition fees hike that caused the strike in the forst place. However, when she betrayed her electorate by indexing the tuition fees, kneeling before the mining industry and selling the Anticosti Island to a gas company, Marois' support diminished drastically. Bernard Drainville - her minister of « Democratic Institutions and Active Citizenship » - found the inspiration to wave the false flag of an Islamic menace, reminiscing the 2008 rise of the populist right-wing formation, the Action démocratique du Québec, who then almost won its election with this precise tactic. These straw man politics were to allow the PQ a gain of support from a right electorate normally voting for federalist parties while the young citizens turned toward the inclusive Québec solidaire.

Drainville proposed a « Charter of Québec Values » or, in other words, a law that regulates where and when people - especially Muslims - can wear religious symbols or pieces of clothing that cover the head (with the exception of small Christian crosses). Many supporters of this law - that never passed - would later be members of neo-fascist or anti-immigration groups like La Meute,Storm Alliance or the Fédération des Québécois de souche. Among those was also the young Alexandre Bissonnette, a right-wing supporter of Drainville who would kill 7 people at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Québec City in 2017. Despite that draft law which secured them numerous racist allies, the PQ lost 24 seats in the 2014 elections since it had lost the support of non-bureaucratic unions, students, radical nationalists, POCs, Indigenous people, ecologists and feminists. On an obvious decline, the PQ continued to try to appeal to an afraid population by using a xenophobic rhetoric carried by Jean-François Lisée - a then-communist now-chauvinist who would become leader of the PQ in 2016.

During that Charter episode, most of Québec's media (possessed mainly by two companies) went on to unofficially, but conspicuously, endorse an anti-Islam line. The student strike being over, columnists like Richard Martineau, Lise Ravary or Christian Rioux had to find another scapegoat. An already marginalized population like the Muslims was an easy target for racist groups fueled by media propaganda. Pig heads were dropped in front of mosques and hidjab-wearing women were harassed, but many media defended these hate crimes by repeatedly claiming they were only bad taste jokes. Indeed, the hate crimes against the Black and Muslim population in Québec rose from 2014 and onwards according to Statistics Canada.

Having dropped the idea of Québec's independence to prioritize its populist anti-immigration turn, the PQ lost its members to a more openly xenophobic and capitalistic formation: the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) - a party formed by conservatives with the ex-PQ minister François Legault as its head. In 2018, the CAQ formed a majority government and imposed Bill 21 on June 14 2019, which forbids teachers and many other state employees to wear religious symbols.

Still relying on its racist discourse, the PQ is nowadays the only opposition party that supports this law - regardless of the fact that their popularity is radically going down since they began to employ this approach. Now with only 9 seats, making it the fourth party in importance, the PQ is on his deathbed. Instead of defending nationalism by working to build the country of Québec, it has aligned with far-right groups' political narrative. For them, the State must defend the population against ethnic diversity and Islam. However, because of the many disguises the xenophobic movements have put on these discriminatory practices - invoking laicity, Québec values and other ideological euphemisms - it took years for antifascist and antiracist groups to gain some legitimacy in the struggle against discriminatory law projects.

Instead, it was mostly moderate humanist groups that fought against these laws, leaving to the radicals the fight against overtly fascist organizations like Atalante Québec. These days, however, groups from a large spectrum of the left are allying to resist against Bill 21 and the Legault government. They are less and less afraid to point out mainstream right-wingers as racists. As the years go by, it is more and more difficult for ethnic nationalists to legitimate their movement since Quebecers have been fed their « we're not racists, but… » rhetoric to a point it cannot ingest more without taking a stance toward either chauvinism or internationalism.

Québec's situation is not bright with the CAQ in power and neo-fascist groups growing influence in the streets, but now there are counter-movements organizing. On June 19, Montreal activists proclaimed the beginning of a hunger strike to protest Bill 21. In Québec City, an anti-Bill 21 coalition was formed on the initiative of muslim women, students and other feminists. Against the media-fueled xenophobia put forward by the government, a small but significative spectrum of the population is now determined to pinpoint the fact that the nationalist movement in the province is no more a progressive-looking and liberty monger set of forces, but a proper conservative anti-immigration movement.

More Than Words: Formulating Slogans for the Struggle

By Derek R. Ford

This originally appeared at Liberation School .

Slogans play a key role in all political activities, whether they be local demonstrations, pickets, strikes, or mass movements. While the fact that slogans are short might make it seem as though they're of minor importance or a mere matter of semantics, the fact is that slogans can be decisive factors in individual and more protracted political struggles, for movements for reform and revolution.

Slogans aren't just words that we put on banners and placards. They are tools to orient and guide political activity-including mass outreach-to unite different sectors of the movement, to educate people by helping them reach their own conclusions, and to educate the Party by revealing the consciousness of the people.

As crystallizations of complex situations and ideas, slogans distill political theory and strategy into concise formulas; they can't say everything. Because struggles are dynamic, they have to be re-evaluated constantly. A slogan could be correct one day and incorrect the next.

All of this means that slogans can have real, material consequences. They can advance a struggle or move it backwards, alienate people or draw them in, communicate the truth or deceive.

Whether a slogan is correct or not isn't an abstract question, but a concrete one. A slogan can be theoretically correct, in that it communicates a political truth, yet still be practically incorrect because it doesn't relate this truth to the specific conditions of struggle at that time.

Slogans have to be accessible to the broad masses of people, not only in terms of wording but in terms of the content establishing a point of contact with people's consciousness. This doesn't mean that they cater to the "lowest common denominator," but that they speak to the broadest possible segments of the movement. In other words, Marxists don't create slogans for ourselves and other Marxists, but for the masses. They're teaching tools.

Like all propaganda, slogans have different scales. They might be specific to one struggle in one town or city at one moment, or they might have national and international relevance. Some slogans take the form of demands, while others take the form of statements.

The purpose of this article is to flesh out the above elements and functions of slogans, and to illustrate the critical roles they assume during concrete struggles. This is illustrated most clearly in the twists and turns of the revolutionary struggle in Russia as it unfolded in 1917. In the final sections, we give some more contemporary examples and then walk through some guiding questions to aid in the formulation of slogans.

Lenin on slogans: All power to the Soviets!

In the middle of July 1917, Lenin published a short pamphlet "On Slogans" (note: in this section we use the Julian calendar dates). In it, he reflected on the recent drastic shift in dynamics and the corresponding need for new slogans:

"Too often has it happened that, when history has taken a sharp turn, even progressive parties have for some time been unable to adapt themselves to the new situation and have repeated slogans which had formerly been correct but had now lost all meaning-lost it as 'suddenly' as the sharp turn in history was 'sudden.'
Something of the sort seems likely to recur in connection with the slogan calling for the transfer of all state power to the Soviets. That slogan was correct during a period of our revolution-say, from February 27 to July 4-that has now passed irrevocably. It has patently ceased to be correct now. Unless this is understood, it is impossible to understand anything of the urgent questions of the day. Every particular slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of a definite political situation."

The slogan, "All power to the Soviets," which Lenin first proposed in his April Theses, was at this moment no longer correct because it no longer corresponded to the balance of forces. It could no longer lead the movement forward. On the contrary, it would actually lead the movement into the hands of counter-revolution. As of mid-July, it was a deceitful slogan.

The last sentence quoted above bears repeating: "Every particular slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of a definite political situation."

Only by soberly assessing the current political dynamics can the Party form a correct slogan. As these dynamics unfold, the Party must re-evaluate and, when necessary, withdraw, modify, or create new slogans.

To better appreciate Lenin's writing on slogans, it's helpful to review the evolution of the Bolshevik's slogans during the earlier months.

The February 1917 revolution overthrew Czarist rule and instituted a situation of dual power, a totally unique situation in which power rested both in the new Provisional Government and the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' deputies. The real power rested in the Soviets, a grassroots democracy that derived its authority from the workers, peasants, sailors, and soldiers. They were composed of various political parties, and in the early days of 1917 the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks, both of whom were social democrats of one stripe or another, were the dominating forces. The Provisional Government-charged with organizing democratic elections-was dominated by the Constitutional Democratic Party, or Cadets, which favored a constitutional monarchy with workers' rights. While it's composition changed throughout the year, it also had representatives of other parties, including the SRs (beginning in March) and the Mensheviks (beginning in April).

Lenin described this situation as dual power, as power was divided between these two forces-which he called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (the Provisional Government) and the nascent dictatorship of the workers (the Soviets)-and there was a more or less stable agreement between them. There was an unprecedented level of political freedom at that time, as communists were able to openly agitate, organize, and protest.

When he returned to Russia from exile in April, Lenin put forward the slogan "All power to the Soviets." He was initially rebuffed within the Party for this slogan (and for the April Theses), but through political explanation won Party members over. The Bolsheviks also withdrew their previous slogan, "Turn the imperialist war into a civil war" at that time.

To understand the significance of this slogan and the work it did, there are a few things to note. Most obviously, the slogan advocated that power should be transferred from the Provisional Government to the Soviets, not that the Soviets should overthrow the government. The Provisional Government was weak and required the consent of the Soviets to rule. The slogan meant that the Bolsheviks should direct all of their energy to building up the power of the Soviets and their influence within them. Further, the slogan was a message to the masses who made up the Soviets: you, the working people and the oppressed, have power and can take it! You don't need the Provisional Government!

"All power to the Soviets" also expressed total opposition to the Provisional Government. This contrasted with the SRs and Mensheviks, who called for confidence in the Provisional Government.

What is particularly interesting is that, at this time, not only were the Bolsheviks the minority of the Soviets, but the Executive Commission of the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies was actually passing resolutions denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks at that time, equating their propaganda with that of the Monarchists. Why would the Bolshevik's call for all power to be transferred to an institution they have no real power in?

The slogan anticipated the inevitability of an open struggle between the government and the Soviets. The Bolsheviks knew that, due to their political orientation, the SRs and Mensheviks wouldn't be able to straddle both forms of power forever. They would have to make choices-through actions and words-and these choices would expose them before the masses. The slogan anticipated certain developments.

Through one crisis after another, the incompatibility of dual power sharpened, and each time the SRs and Mensheviks sided with the imperialist bourgeoisie in the Provisional Government rather than the workers and oppressed in the Soviets. In this way, the slogan was meant to educate the movement, not by lecturing the people with one viewpoint over and over, but by helping them come to their own conclusions based on their own experiences.

During the first crisis in late April-when the streets erupted in protests and meetings, and reactionary elements led by military officers and The Black Hundreds attacked workers-one section of the Bolsheviks marched under the slogan "Down with the provisional government," until the local central committee intervened and ordered them to retract it.

At first, the slogan might appear similar to or compatible with "All power to the Soviets." After all, if there are two powers, calling for all power to one implies zero power to the other, which would result in that power's downfall. But the slogans are different in crucial ways. In a resolution adopted immediately after the protests ended, the Central Committee wrote that the slogan, "Down with the provisional government" was "an incorrect one at the present moment because, in the absence of a solid (i.e., a class-conscious and organised) majority of the people on the side of the revolutionary proletariat, such a slogan is either an empty phrase, or objectively, amounts to attempts of an adventurist character."

It's not that the slogan was wrong in the abstract or for all time, but that it was inappropriate and premature relative to the existing political situation. It didn't do anything to educate or advance the struggle and it unnecessarily left the Party vulnerable to accusations that it wanted to mount a violent insurrection (accusations that appeared in rival newspapers in the following days).

That the Party issued contrasting slogans revealed a weakness in its internal organization and unity, which in turn resulted in a lack of organization and unity in the movement.

The crisis ended when the SRs and Mensheviks cracked under pressure, and got the Soviets to vote confidence in the government. As part of the deal, six SRs and Mensheviks joined the government as ministers. While "All power to the Soviets" remained in effect, they advanced new slogans, including "Down with the 10 capitalist ministers." By framing it this way, the Bolsheviks weren't still weren't calling for an overthrow of the government. They also weren't concentrating their agitation against the six "socialist" ministers collaborating with the imperialists. Instead, the slogan called on the SRs and Mensheviks to break with the imperialists in the government. In so doing, the slogan continued to expose the vacillation of the SRs and Mensheviks and their inability to provide the peace, land, and bread that the masses needed and demanded.

The Bolsheviks advanced these slogans during the next large protest on June 18, which Lenin said at the time marked at "turning point" in the movement because of the political maturity of the demonstrators. It was a short but mass demonstration during which the Bolsheviks' slogans clearly prevailed. Putting the slogans into the streets allowed the Bolsheviks to take the temperature of the movement, to evaluate the level of consciousness amongst the masses.

Slogans are thus a two-way street that not only educate the masses, but also educate the Party.

Just a few weeks later, in what's known as the "July Days," workers staged the most militant demonstrations yet, almost to the point of insurrection. Many workers called on the Bolsheviks to take power at that moment, but they refused because the actions were too concentrated in Petrograd and the Bolsheviks were still in the minority in the Soviets. Pro-government forces opened fire on the workers and burned the Bolshevik's printing press and headquarters.

While there wasn't a large-scale massacre, the events were another turning point in the struggle. The relative peace and freedom ushered in by the February Revolution was broken. There was no more dual power, and no other alternative than to prepare for an armed uprising. This was the moment that Lenin penned his short article "On Slogans" quoted from above.

Later, when the contours of power changed again, the Bolsheviks reintroduced the slogan. In late August, Lavr Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, attempted a coup against the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government. To defeat the coup, the Soviets and the government actually armed the Bolsheviks, who created red guards. They didn't want to, but they knew the Bolsheviks had the most militant workers on their side. In the face of the red guards, Kornilov's troops backed down. No blood was shed, but a new period began. The Bolsheviks now had the majority in the Soviets of Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere.

Under these new conditions, "All power to the Soviets" indicated a preparation for the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

The role of slogans in the US anti-war movement

Again, slogans are critical for the development of any movement or struggle under any conditions, including non-revolutionary times. They should speak to people, drawing them into the struggle and moving their consciousness forward.

Whenever struggles unfold, so too do contradictions. Different political forces and ideologies fight to win people over and to push the movement in particular directions. In general, whichever ideologies are dominant in society will also be dominant in mass movements, as those forces have the most resources at their disposal. The ruling class in the United States today has the most refined and extensive ideological apparatus of any ruling class in history.

They have a sophisticated ability to absorb and channel discontent. The bourgeoisie, through its liberal wing, proposes their own slogans that funnel outrage and prevent revolutionary consciousness from taking hold.

During the first war against Iraq, the liberal slogan in the anti-war movement was "Economic sanctions, not war." This was a smart slogan because it was accessible for people who were opposed to war, and then moved them into supporting economic sanctions by presenting it as an alternative to war. It worked to prevent the development of principled opposition to war by latching onto a tactical split within the ruling class and trying to draw people into one side of this split.

The opposing slogan was "No war against Iraq." It was honest and straightforward. It was principled yet appealed to the broadest number of people. It encompassed an opposition to economic sanctions, allowing us to show that they were merely another form of warfare. This, in turn, showed the class character of the conflict.

Another key difference concerns the longevity of each slogan. When the actual bombing campaign ended, the slogan "Economic sanctions, not war" was realized. Everyone who was mobilized under that slogan could, as a result, leave the struggle and stop organizing. For those who mobilized under the slogan "No war against Iraq," however, the struggle continued because the war continued by other means. This latter slogan was oriented toward building a sustained anti-war movement, while the former slogan was oriented toward preventing such a movement. Because it flowed from a Leninist analysis of imperialism, it anticipated the continuation of war.

History confirmed that we needed this long-term orientation. The sanctions regime devastated Iraq and its people throughout the 1990s. Contrasted with the pro-sanctions slogan, the "No war against Iraq" slogan allowed people to see exactly how economic sanctions are a war tactic. In the early 2000s the imperialist tactics shifted again.

As the second war against Iraq approached, our slogans were "No war against Iraq" and "Stop the war before it starts. When Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, our slogans changed to "Bring the troops home now" and "Occupation is not liberation." These slogans were principled in their opposition to war and refused to capitulate to imperialist arguments for "lesser measures" like inspections and sanctions, and to imperialist propaganda that demonized the Iraqi resistance.

Further, the "Occupation is not liberation" slogan in particular allowed people to see links between the occupation of Iraq and the occupation of Palestine. At the time this was a controversial connection to make, even in the progressive movement. The liberal section of the anti-war movement split off largely because this focus alienated them from the Democratic Party.

It's commonplace for liberals and other left forces to advance compromising or confused slogans to prevent anti-imperialist consciousness from growing. For example, during the US/NATO war against Libya in 2011 one segment of the left advocated the slogan, "Yes to the rebels, no to the intervention." This deceived people into thinking that the rebels were opposed to intervention, when they were actually the ones calling for intervention. They also mobilized around, "Down with Gaddafi." This was the exact same slogan as the imperialists. By contrast, our slogan was "Stop the bombing of Libya." Because this bombing was justified under "humanitarian" pretexts that included the demonization of Gaddafi and the Libyan government, the slogan rejected this demonization campaign.

Formulating slogans: Methods of approach and questions to consider

If carefully chosen, straightforward and simple slogans are effective because they can facilitate effective united fronts in different struggles. Slogans should be uncompromising and principled, yet formulated in a popular and accessible way that can advance mass consciousness.

To begin formulating slogans, it makes sense to first assess the different dynamics at play. When a struggle-or the possibility of one-surfaces, think: What's the immediate issue at hand? What are the larger, or systemic causes manifesting in the issue; who and what are responsible? What are different segments of society thinking about it? What is the bourgeoisie rallying around? To learn what the bourgeoisie or its different sectors think, all you have to do is read the newspaper. Are there left-liberal groups anywhere nationally engaged in a similar struggle, and if so, what are their slogans? You can find this on social media. What are people in your area thinking? To find this out, you have to speak with the people. Beyond speaking with coworkers, family, and friends, you could do a poll or survey at a bus station about the issue.

What would it take to resolve the problem, both in the immediate and long term? What, in other words, are your demands? What do they have in common? What do you want people to learn from your slogans? What do you want people to understand, and how best can you help them understand? How can you phrase them so that they can rally the most people together?

Sometimes slogans start off basic and gain greater specificity later. In general, it's better to start out broader. It's common for two or three different slogans to guide a movement, and usually one of them is quite broad ("No war against Syria," or "Justice for Trayvon"). Others that accompany it will flesh out some component of it. For example, "No to the demonization of Syrian government" is necessary for opposing war against Syria, because the demonization campaign is part of the war drive.

There are also different "levels" of slogans. One slogan might address a specific and immediate demand, while another simultaneously addresses the more systemic causes.

Let's say you're organizing a struggle around housing problems in your town or city. One slogan might focus on a particular component of the problem ("Zero tolerance for slumlords," "Tenants' rights now") or a particular target ("No tax breaks for X developer"). At the same time, another slogan might focus on the foundational causes of the problem ("Housing is a human right"). These two different levels work together and can help people make the connections between the specific manifestation and its general cause (the only way to really eliminate slumlords is to make housing a guaranteed right), or the specific remedy and the more foundational and permanent remedy (getting rid of slumlords is part of the struggle for socialism).

Slogans aren't comprehensive political platforms. It might be helpful to think about the slogan as a frame and the political platform as the picture within the frame. The frame encompasses the picture, allows the viewer to see it, and directs the viewer's attention to it (in a museum, you know to look at something if it's framed).

In the same way, the slogan should frame the issue at hand, directing people's attention to it and inviting them in. Within the frame, you'll paint a more intricate and nuanced picture with leaflets, speeches, and other propaganda and agitational materials.

Exploitation and oppression are deepening, and the capitalist ideologies are increasingly unable to provide excuses for the system. As a consequence, people are taking action and looking for real explanations and alternatives. By advancing proper slogans, we can mobilize people and deepen our collective understanding of the problems and their solutions.

Students, Peasants, and Communism in Colombia: An Interview with Oliver Dodd (Part Two)

By Devon Bowers

This is Part Two of our interview with Oliver Dodd, a PhD student at Nottingham University, where we expand upon his April 2019 article in the online edition of the Morning Star.

What is the current political and economic situation in Colombia?

Since the early 1990s Colombia engaged on a process of neo-liberal restructuring, largely to finance the counter-insurgency war against the powerful Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In return for economic and military aid, the United States and the International Monetary Fund, demanded neoliberal reforms that entailed economic privatisation, liberalisation of foreign trade, financial deregulation, and reduced tariffs. As a result, Colombia's economic model today is largely extractivist and its capitalist accumulation strategy is dependent on those multinational corporations based in the core of the international political economy.

In terms of production of revenue from exports, Colombia's traditional export - coffee - which in the 1980s produced more than half of the country's export revenue, now represents only around 5% of export revenue. Currently, coal, oil and gas, make up more than 60% of export revenue. These economic changes have led to political changes. The multinational corporations invested in extractivism are overwhelmingly based in the capitalist core. The majority of the profits generated in Colombia's economy are put into the pockets of the finance capitalists, based outside Colombia. Furthermore, relative to other sectors - manufacturing (around 10%), services (around 35%), oil, coal and gas generates significantly higher profits. This trend puts multinational corporations in a stronger economic position vis-à-vis Colombia's declining national bourgeoisie. Nationally based companies are increasingly being bought out by multinational corporations, further extending foreign based influence over Colombia's economy and making the country more vulnerable to social forces organised at world order levels.

The peace accord signed with FARC in 2016 is under severe threat. Paramilitary killings of social activists since the signing of the peace agreement have increased, thousands of FARC combatants have either remobilised or refused to demobilise because of what they perceived as betrayal on the part of FARC's leadership, or the danger of paramilitary killings - more than 85 FARC ex-combatants have now been murdered since November 2016. FARC dissident leaders that have taken the hard-line position of refusing to demobilise basically argue that armed struggle is the only path to transform Colombia's political economy. In short, the 2016 peace accord has not brought peace.

However, I would argue that "peoples war" is no longer an applicable strategy in the historically specific conditions of Colombia today. The overwhelming majority of citizens live in urban areas and many of the insurgent social structures formed in the countryside have become corrupted and bureaucratised. The so-called "revolution in military affairs" (RIMA) has allowed the armed forces, notably in the form of air-power, to increasingly put the leftist insurgents on the defensive. Today satellite technology can be employed to detect guerrillas based in the mountains, let alone the countryside - where peasants, especially the youth, are increasingly departing for the towns and cities. This is not to suggest that guerrilla warfare cannot play any useful role as part of an overarching political strategy, but a military-centric strategy is becoming more difficult to implement effectively. Colombia's state, largely due to Plan Colombia and the military technology and intelligence capabilities it provided, has shown a consistent capacity to target even the most protected and important of guerrilla commanders. Until 2008, not a single member of FARC's 7-person secretariat had been killed, but since then, at least four have been successfully targeted and significant numbers of FARC's and ELN's medium level command have been killed. I know of some highly capable and politically educated leaders within the ELN, who were made "High-Valued-Targets" and very swiftly killed. This suggests to me that RIMA is changing the balance of forces in favour of the Colombian military and its main sponsor - the U.S.

There is also a significant shortage of intellectuals within both FARC dissidents' groups and the ELN, largely because they were successfully targeted by the Colombian military. This means that "militias" - those responsible for recruitment and upholding law and order in rural villages and towns, which are usually organised some distance from the more disciplined and politicised structures of the armed guerrilla units - sometimes tend to act without discipline and bring the organisations into disrepute among the civilian population. There is then, the realistic possibility that following another peace accord, these "conflict entrepreneurs" will continue to function as strictly criminal entities, thus leading to no practical end in the conflict.

ELN's strategy however, as already mentioned, does not entail a "military solution" to the conflict. Armed structures are understood by ELN as permanent, unless the conditions of class struggle within Colombia's periphery change to undermine guerrilla struggle completely - this conception of armed struggle is distinct from the more military-centred strategy of people's war, based on surrounding the cities from the countryside. The ELN's strategy implies that armed force has a utility in class struggle, not that political power will necessarily come through the barrel of a gun. This has been one of the fundamental differences in strategy between ELN and FARC for decades.

Regarding Colombia's trade-union structures, neoliberalism is making it more difficult for the labour movement to organise. On top of having a significant and dispersed informal sector in Colombia, repeated right-wing governments (I include the Santos administration here) have favoured economic growth along neoliberal lines rather than extending the political and economic rights of workers; this has amounted to government policies and a political economy that makes it harder for the trade-unions to organise, in the midst of paramilitary violence. At the same time, recent changes to agricultural economic policies have made it more difficult for peasants to earn a living, thereby increasing displacement and opening up land for capitalist investment. It is important to note that such rural-to-urban migration, of the constant supply of formerly rural labours desperately looking for work in the cities, enables urban based capitalists to benefit from the increased competition for work and therefore to keep wages low.

Even the peace agreement seems to have been conceived, to a large extent, as part of a neoliberal economic growth strategy. By signing the peace accord with FARC, multinational corporations have been able to access territories, wealthy in natural resources, which were previously governed by the FARC. Indeed, a key motivation for the accord, unveiled by the former President, Juan Manuel Santos, was that "A Colombia in peace will attract more investments that will create more and better jobs" - in other words, the neoliberal capitalist accumulation model will be strengthened because there will be no leftist insurgent forces to put pressure on international investors.

Still, the fact that Gustavo Petro placed second in the 2018 presidential elections is significant. The last time a leftist candidate in Colombia's political system challenged for president, he was assassinated - Jorge Gaitán in 1948. As such, we have seen the rise of a left-wing surge in Colombia, like in other countries - Bernie Sanders in the U.S., Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, Podemos and Syriza in Spain and Greece respectfully. The current right-wing president, Iván Duque, who employed populist discourse to get elected, is being unmasked as no different from the establishment. This may create some opening for the left in the next elections, enabling it to open up some political space for the labour movement to organise a fight-back.

In what ways does the US supporting anti-guerilla efforts in Colombia linked to a larger, regional strategy push back against leftist movements in Latin America?

U.S. support for the Colombian state goes back many decades. Colombia borders five countries and, with ten U.S. military bases, permits the U.S. to effectively project its military power into Central and South American countries. Also, Colombia's economy is potentially very balanced, and benefits from several natural resources and has very fertile land for agriculture. There exist the resources to develop powerful industrial and manufacturing sectors, moving away from what is currently an economic strategy of extractivism.

A socialist state in Colombia, supported by a powerful labour movement, could have a transformative impact on Latin America and change the correlation of social class forces in favour of the socialist movement. It would be possible for a socialist government in Colombia to pursue a relatively independent political economic strategy, while focusing on economic and political independence for the region as a whole. The experience of the small and economically impoverished island of socialist Cuba on Latin America's left and labour movement - situated only ninety miles from the U.S - is an example of what a revolutionary state in the much wealthier Colombia could achieve, in terms of potentially shaping the future of the region. In other words, a left-wing or socialist-led Colombia could represent a major defeat for U.S. imperialism.

Additionally, Colombia's capitalist system is difficult to transform constitutionally, and the country boasts of having one of the longest surviving liberal-democratic systems in Latin America, although state terrorism employed against workers and peasants has remained constant throughout the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Historically, the two dominant political parties, the Liberal and Conservative party, solidly represented capitalist interests, and rarely disagreed over fundamental questions relating to economic change. These trends make Colombia a reliable ally for the U.S. in its "backyard".

For these reasons, the Colombian state has been a consistently reliable ally of the U.S. Having only ever had pro-capitalist governments, a free-trade agreement is in place, Colombia's economy is dominated by U.S. multinationals, and the state has loyally followed the U.S. government's policy of open hostility to the so-called "Pink-tide" - the surge of South American based, left-wing, anti-imperialist influence over the last two decades. In its fight against the leftist rebels, Colombia opened up its economy to U.S. corporations in return for economic and military aid. And currently, Colombia is being used as the main proxy to further aggravate the political and economic crisis in Venezuela. The dominant capitalist classes in Colombia will benefit enormously from regime change in Venezuela.

Initially, the U.S. drew on the pretext of combating drugs to justify intervention into Colombia. The U.S. State Department insisted that Plan Colombia, the U.S. military and economic initiative implemented at the start of the 1999-2002 peace negotiations with FARC, was about tackling the drug-trade. In reality, Plan Colombia was employed as a counter-insurgency measure that upgraded and restructured Colombia's armed forces and was used largely to target the leftist rebels, as opposed to the drug-cartels and right-wing paramilitaries. It also led to the major expansion of U.S. military influence in Colombian society, including the building of several U.S. military bases. In other words, the pretext of anti-drug activity, and then anti-guerrilla activity, was exploited by the U.S. to establish a base of political, military and economic influence in a strategically located country of South America.

Where can people learn more about ELN and your own work?

There is a momentous amount of work on the armed conflict and the insurgent groups published in Colombia. Unfortunately, very little of this work has been translated from Spanish into English. This needs to be rectified, and I am surprised that so little effort has been put into this process of translation, as it would allow international audiences to learn about Colombia's complicated history - Colombia is understood as an "outlier" in politics and international relations scholarship. Indeed, the depth of Colombian scholarship on the armed conflict is strong.

Regarding the ELN in the Spanish language, "La Guerrilla Por Dentro" by Jaime Arenas, a former ELN guerrilla gives an insider perspective on the first stages of the movements' formation. Darío Villamizar has also published, in Spanish, one of the key histories of the several insurgent movements in Colombia. Carlos Medina, in addition to other important works on the ELN, has just written a history of ELN's ideas from 1958 to 2018, in Spanish, where he talks about the worker-peasant-student alliance. Carlos Medina's works are very detailed and significant; relatively little has been written on the ELN in any language. I haven't come across a book dedicated to understanding the ELN's trajectory in English, but the journal article by Gruber and Pospisil, entitled "'Ser Eleno': Insurgent identity formation in the ELN", vigorously contests some of the significant misconceptions about the movement.

I am in the first year of my PhD at Nottingham University working on Colombia's 2016 peace agreement with FARC, which analyses the underlying dynamics from a historical materialist perspective. My MA dissertation, slightly modified, was published in the Midlands Historical Review and can be found online. I have also written two journalistic pieces on the ELN in the Morning Star newspaper. I am currently working on a journal article relating to the "political" inside the ELN - challenging the narrative that the ELN has "lost its way" and merely become a criminal entity - based on my five months of ethnographic research in 2015. My blog about armed conflict in Colombia can be found online at http://www.colombianconflict.com

Decolonial Resistance in Hip Hop: Re-Colonial Resistances, Love, and Wayward Self-Determination

By Joe Hinton

Although many forms of black expressive culture contain elements of political resistance, hip hop is a form that has been recognized by numerous scholars for its unique, complex, and nuanced forms of offering political discourse. As Damon Sajnani notes, the origins of hip hop are inherently political, specifically rooted in the politics of the "decolonization of local urban space". Hip Hop today, the most popular genre in the United States (if not the world), is quite disconnected from these political roots in a radical anti-colonial politic built through creating livelihood out of structure-based psychological pain.

What is the nature of resistance in hip hop, and what do scholars have to say about its current status? Many note that hip hop has been co-opted by a white-controlled market and has been manipulated so as to promote limited narratives of Blackness, many of which are derived from minstrel tropes. Sometimes, these tropes can be manifested as partial resistances to white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal settler-colonialism. Sometimes, when they rely on European notions of political resistance that are either inherently capitalistic or statist/nationalist, they reify colonial structures and are thus re-colonial. Sometimes they flip the narrative of oppression or expose it for what it is, as Tricia Rose notes, but do so in a way that constitutes a solid first step to resistance but does not completely answer the question of how one wants to exist and live in a world beyond the reality of this oppression.

In my eyes, the only types of resistant expressive culture that can actually spur Black liberation must create alternative visions that denounce resistances that rely on other closely related forms of oppression and toxic psychologies. Building off the ideas of Cornel West, Zoe Samudzi, and William C. Anderson, these visions must be centered in both collective love and individualist, wayward, and deviant lifestyle choices. By wayward and deviant, I mean prone to reject the boxes imposed by American culture and its depictions of Blackness. I draw on the idea that Black and indigenous people in the United States exist liminally, not as citizens. This means that as the state is functioned to precipitate our extinction and/or suffering and to prevent our full integration into the benefits of society, and that our existence as colonial subjects, regardless of socioeconomic advancement, renders our status perpetually ambiguous and subject to a constantly uncertain chaos and threat of violence that reinforces a spiritual feeling of collective subordination. This chaos can be overcome by a moment of creation and establishment of what the state deprives us of and excludes us from: self-love. Hip Hop originally sought to achieve this, but it has been co-opted by the market and the limited narratives it promotes, with some notable exceptions. Once based in love, and dedicated to the creation of love-based communities, these forms of culture can help spur mobilization against white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal settler-colonialism (WSCPSC) to defend ourselves against it and eventually overthrow it; or, more immediately, find a way to create communities that employ social rules and customs that promote Black and indigenous love, rather than relying on the false promises of liberal reformism and partial resistances.

Although it remains true that hip hop has been co-opted by a powerful white media establishment, it also remains true that hip hop is an inherently resistant genre in that it constantly engages with the "politics of having fun," a framework that can be perceived as seemingly apolitical, but is actually quite focused on the psychological effects of socio-political hierarchies. Where songs can be differentiated in their political efficacy is the degree to which they promote a liberational Black politic. As Cornel West notes, a truly liberational Black politic is committed to fighting racism at its root: capitalism. And is also determined to end all associated forms of oppression that result from capitalism and colonialism: homophobia, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. Within hip hop, although the 80s and 90s featured a number of artists for whom the legacy of Black Power reigned eminent, the modern mainstream genre is primarily full of either market-driven resistances, partial resistances, or their associated re-colonial resistances.

Partial resistances vary as to the terms to which they reify colonial resistances, but most do to one extent or another. N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police" emphatically decries the historically biased and anti-Black prosecuting tendencies of the City of Los Angeles quite creatively while also reifying the colonial oppression of gay people by using homophobic slurs. The sexual domination narratives promoted by Cardi B and Nicki Minaj take a step towards a less subordinate position for Black women and do promote positive narratives that Black women can be proud of their sexuality, but also reify the objectification and exploitation of the Black female body by offering limited options for how a famous Black women is to present herself and her body. This is not to say that other options are not presented by other Black females; to do so would be myopic. I am rather emphasizing that the female rappers with the most prominence do not fit these narrow images, coincidentally; they are approved by a white-controlled media elite that has never shied away from aligning Black female exploitation and lucrative profits. In the wake of the death of Nipsey Hussle, an LA rapper known for his generosity and devotion to community uplift, Jay Z exclaimed that Black people should look to gentrify their own neighborhoods before white people can. Given that gentrification is fundamentally aligned with the same ideologies of settler-colonialism and economic exploitation that hip hop was founded on alleviating and eliminating, suggesting such a notion is especially re-colonial. All of these are examples of when artists in hip hop use their platforms to promote the advancement of an oppressed group, but somehow reify a hierarchy that exists to make Black people and Black women suffer.

Then how can hip hop be completely resistant and neither partial nor re-colonial? As Sajnani notes, the diasporic nature of Black nationalism is an effective liberational alternative to the pain of WSPCSC, a nationalism distinct from its European analog. This nationalism has been referred to vaguely by scholars such as Bakari Kitwana, specifically to his conception of a Hip-Hop Generation, and was cited positively by West in his analysis of Morrison's Beloved. Many arguments regarding Black self-determination usually rely on this statist conception. Sajnani's analysis of the Black national bourgeoisie, of which Jay Z is a prominent member, is particularly revealing. He claims that partial resistances are often performed by prominent Blacks as a means to receive compensation from the white cultural gatekeepers while Black exploitation is upheld by the national order. To Sajnani, to support the American Dream is to ignore economic stratification, which in the US is always a racial topic. Black capitalists, especially in hip hop, engage in the rhetoric of the American Dream quite regularly, relying on a misguided bootstraps ideology. But even if Black capitalism can't be a true form of resistance to WSPCSC, can diasporic nationalism constitute a more complete resistance? As Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson propose in their powerful novel on the anarchism of Blackness as Black as Resistance,

"attempting to reclaim and repurpose the settler state will not lead to liberation, and it will not provide the kind of urgent material relief so many people desperately need, though electing empathetic officials sometimes can arguably mitigate against harm. Only through a material disruption of these geographies, through the cultivation of Black autonomy, can Black liberation begin to be actualized."

As such, a legitimate response to WSPCSC must not consider the future of Blackness as reliant on a statist solution. Although Sajnani's support of a somewhat re-colonial nationalism, no matter if distinct from European nationalism, is misguided, his emphasis on "resisting the appropriation of Hip Hop and elaborating its original mission" (I would replace appropriation with misappropriation) is quite relevant to establishing a liberatory Black politic through hip hop. What is the next step?

While resistance in Black politics today often calls for criminal justice reform instead of radical restructuring of the industrial-prison complex, 2018 saw some powerful forms of resistance enter the mainstream, most notably Childish Gambino's "This is America." Gambino's Grammy-award-winning song and video effectively criticizes the current state of hip hop and minstrel tropes. As Frank Guan notes, "It's a tribute to the cultural dominance of trap music and a reflection on the ludicrous social logic that made the environment from which trap emerges, the logic where money makes the man, and every black man is a criminal." Gambino's work helped bring a critical element of reflection into the mainstream of pop and hip hop: that the limited, minstrel-reproducing narratives of Blackness in popular culture contribute to past and present forms of social subordination. It is a crucial step towards finding a liberatory politic and is quite close to a complete form of resistance. Where it falls short however is along two fronts: an explicit embrace of a collective love ethic, and a moment of creation that accepts the reality of Black liminality and becomes devoted to a deviant determination of one's self that allows for the complexity of Blackness to live freely and waywardly, away from the psychological boxes imposed on us by WSCPSC.

I have come to learn that hip hop has an extremely high potential for being politically resistant to WSCPSC, but it is going to take a lot of work to return it to what it once accomplished. Very few forms of hip hop are directly engaged with a love ethic nor with an explicitly deviant rejection of WSCPSC based in self-determination. Two legacies of Black expressive culture will serve as my examples for such a cultural politic in this section: Toni Morrison's Beloved, as cited and analyzed by West, and the work of Prince, a genre-less Black artist whose influence on and connections to hip hop are understated. These forms of culture are committed to examining how Black people can create their own worlds under oppression, and even as they strive for radical changes, they are pragmatic and understand that a complete rejection of WSCPSC would constitute a violent revolution. As such, they utilize Black art as a means of peaceful resistance and alleviation of colonial pain, as hip hop once did. West noted that Morrison's Beloved was an active buffer against the pain of Black nihilism derived from WSCPSC, stressing that "Self-love and love of others are both modes toward increasing self-valuation and encouraging political resistance in one's community."

Black literature's emphasis on self-love and reflection must be replicated in hip hop. Prince understood that "Transcending categories however is not synonymous with abandoning ones' roots." After his death, Alicia Garza, a BLM founder noted that he "was from a world where Black was not only beautiful, but it was nuanced and complex and shifting and unapologetic and wise." Prince does not allow the chaos of Blackness (as constructed by WSCPSC) to render him a slave to reifying some form of colonial oppression, rather he recognizes that "it's about being comfortable in an unfixed state while improvising the topography of your life and music as you go along." Such a mindset and perspective are directly derivative of African religious culture. Thus, a liberational politic must be Afrofuturist. It must avoid the categorical labels offered by WSCPSC because of how much they limit us and function to constrict us. Perhaps a contemporary example of such a wayward, liberational politic comes in Saidiya Hartman's Wayward Lives: Beautiful Experiments, in which she reimagines the deviant and radical lifestyles and love-ethics of early 20th century upper-middle-class Black women. When Black people have the socioeconomic privilege to be able to transcend the limits of WSCPSC's social construction of race using a collective Black love ethic and staying true to the root cause of Black uplift, a promotion of a more plentiful array of types of Black existence can proliferate. And the commodification of Black art can start to dissipate, pushing more and more colonial subjects to reimagine their humanity away from internal colonialism.

This is the future I see for hip hop, one that returns it to its political roots. I understand that the pull of the market is strong, and that hip hop's decolonial future will require some serious changes in cultural discourse. Hip hop must return to its basis as a means of cultural self-defense, of engaging with the politics of having fun in a way that is more cognizant of decolonial motives. Taking down WSCPSC will require both explicit and implicit resistance, most of which will be anti-capitalist. Black expressive culture and its dynamism, specifically with regard to hip hop, have extreme potential for creating radical Black communities in the United States that are neither re-colonial nor based in the European need to monopolize violence, and embrace the duality of Black liminality, the complex nuances of double consciousness, and consider Blackness on one's own determined set of terms.

Notes

Berman, Judy. "'This Is America' 8 Things to Read about Chidish Gambino's New Music Video." New York Times, May 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/arts/music/childish-gambino-this-is-america-roundup.html.

Gordon Williams, James. "Black Muse 4 U: Liminality, Self-Determination, and Racial Uplift in the Music of Prince." Journal of African American Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, Sept. 2017.

Rose, Tricia. Black Noise Rap Music and Black Culture In Contemporary America. Wesleyan University Press, 1994.

Sajnani, Damon. "Hip Hop's Origins as Organic Decolonization." Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society, 2015, https://decolonization.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/hiphops-origins-as-organic-decolonization/ .

Samudzi, Zoe, and William C. Anderson. As Black as Resistance. AK Press, 2018.

Sehgal, Parul. "An Exhilarating Work of History About Daring Adventures in Love." New York Times, Feb. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/books/wayward-lives-beautiful-experiments-saidiya-hartman.html.

West, Cornel. "Nihilism in Black America." Race Matters, Beacon, 1994.

The Nature of the Left: On the Question of Human Nature

By Corinne Hummel

There seems to be a shared cynicism among some members of the Left and the ideologues of liberal democracy: that sexism and racism belong to human nature. While the liberal may use this assertion to justify and necessitate the state, the anarchist may hold this assertion alongside a rejection of the state. In either case, the possible organization of society is restricted by the assumption of innate characteristics. It is unscientific to attribute these products of consciousness to biological determinism, and the implication in this attempt to apply positivism to the human lifeworld is cynical; where potential is limited by subjective observations of the anathema. Recognizing that such cynicism is incompatible with scientific socialism, I aim to explore the ideological genealogy of the Left, along with the topic of human nature. Because there have been many contributors to these theories, I will only name those necessary for the purpose of this discussion.

Beginning with Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations was such an apt observation of the activity of economic life that it catalyzed dozens of 19th -century successors in the realm of political and economic philosophy. Smith presented capitalism as moral and natural, and asserted that the state should not interfere in the liberty of the individual in the market. Hegel thereafter presented an ontological wedge between Smith's work and its influence, theorizing that liberty is achieved when the rational and universal principles of the self-determination of the individual become objectified in the laws of the state. Influenced by both Smith and Hegel, Proudhon became the "father of anarchism" as he argued for collective ownership of the means of production and insisted that individuals should have a right to the full product of their individual labor. He imagined a market society constituted of free-associating collectives, with the state reformed into a "regulating society" with the sole purpose of supporting this activity. As an associate of Proudhon, Bakunin rejected the idea of a reformed state, and instead advocated for a syndicalism which would end the state, as he declared the state to be inherently oppressive.

Bakunin's communist contemporary, Karl Marx, developed his theories of social phenomena and political economy through critique of Smith and Hegel. Marx noticed that Smith's depiction of capitalism as "natural" was scientifically unwarranted. Smith's methodology was teleological: he neglected to critically explain how capitalism emerged, as his "invisible hand" was expressly providential. And where Hegel concluded the human experience is decided by our consciousness, Marx added that our consciousness is informed by our material relations, an idea known as "dialectical materialism." Bakunin promoted collective ownership of the means of production, but disagreed with Marx over collective control of the means of production, as he believed that would result in oppressive hierarchies. Bakunin betrays himself in his declaration that Marxist communism would lead to a "parasitic Jewish nation." Marx was deeply critical of Bakunin, and the two were positioned as adversaries. An interesting turn occurred in Italy where Cafiero, a young advocate of Marxism, joined the more popular Bakuninist side, bringing with him significant influence from Marx. In 1880, Cafiero and his associates made a formal declaration that the individual appropriation of the products of individual labor leads to wealth accumulation based on merit, and that the state becomes necessitated and reinforced by this condition of inequality. So, the Italian Bakuninists, influenced by Marx, shifted the ideas of collectivist anarchists toward what became known as anarcho-communism.

Kropotkin, a naturalist, made significant theoretical contributions to anarcho-communism when he published a series of essays in 1890, which were later combined under the title "mutual aid: a factor in evolution." In these works, Kropotkin used examples from the animal kingdom to argue against survival of the fittest. Inspired by Darwin, he used the methodology of evolutionary biology to claim that cooperation is naturally selected for, as a consciousness. This means that anything not considered cooperation, such as violence, is an expression of consciousness belonging to an unfavorable evolution. Kropotkin faults the earliest formations of centralized states for enchanting humanity toward authority. The crux of this theory is that in the presence of hierarchies, biological tendencies for cooperation are suppressed in an alteration of consciousness. Kropotkin stated that it is only when all individuals' needs are met that the individual can be free, creatively, and for all individuals' needs to be met, there must be cooperation. According to his hypothesis, such cooperation prerequisites a higher consciousness. Kropotkin's empiricist methodology, when applied to sociology, was not immune to subjective idealism. He claimed to be logically outside the realm of metaphysics, yet he demonstrated Hegel's one-way dialectic in which consciousness decides existence. His conception of the naturally evolved consciousness presents a very agreeable outlook on the nonviolent potential of humanity, but it becomes overshadowed by a cynicism that collective consciousness cannot transcend its subjective perceptions of hierarchies.

Looking at non-human species to interpret human sociobiology will produce a variety of contradictory examples, until it becomes a pseudoscientific double-edged sword. Our view of ourselves as we see it in the world around us is subject to the most determined of biases. The reactionary cites the behavior of lobsters to justify class society, while the leftist claims that white supremacy is congenital. In a study of apes, all were given a banana except for one, and that one reacted violently. When looking at human history, we see those with accumulated wealth enacting violence, as conditions of perceived resource scarcity threatened the reproduction of wealth. Homo Sapiens have existed for roughly 200,000 years while capitalism has existed for no more than 700 years (including its precursors). Capitalism is distinct from the trading activities of ancient civilizations, just as you would not call primitive nomadic peoples "colonizers." The birth of capitalism is marked by the expropriation of the means of production, which was preceded by wealth accumulation. Natural disasters, presenting resource scarcity, were likely causes of the transferring of the commons into private ownership. In the work of Carl Nicolai Starcke, we learn that the emergence of patriarchy, first instituted within the family, was preceded by the establishment of private property. Patriarchy first emerged in those primitive societies which uniquely had a gendered division of labor in which private property became solely undertaken by men. Property, at this point in history, was the means of production: animals or land necessary for reproducing existence. This particular development depended on geography. In the harsh climate of Northern Europe, primitive societies were more dependent on herding animals than growing crops, and in these cases there was a gendered division of labor for biological reasons. Men came to inherit the herds because pregnant women could not care for the herds. The subordination of women occurred after their separation from the means of production, as it became the private property of men, but the original separation was not itself subordinating. Similarly, slavery in the Roman Empire was not based on race: the accumulation of wealth, requiring reproduction and protection, caused the state apparatus to develop a market for human labor as property. As capitalist production expanded, sexism and racism became ideological constructions, institutionalized in the service of entrenching support for continued expropriation of the means of production. The witch hunts and colonialism appearing in the late 15th century occurred 100 years after feudal crises had developed pre-modern capitalism.

Compelled by the lack of technical rigor in Wealth of Nations, Marx investigated what is unique to capitalism in its influence on human behavior. In addition to wealth accumulation and perceived resource scarcity, he theorizes that there is alienation occurring in the mode of production. The mode of production is the way in which society reproduces its existence: it is the material and social relations of labor. In capitalism, the instruments of labor, and the products of labor, do not belong to the laborer. To understand Marx's theory of alienation requires his concept of "base and superstructure" wherein the base is the mode of production; the relations of which are reproduced into the superstructure as societal norms and institutions. In the capitalist mode of production, the worker is estranged from the value of their labor while the capitalist is estranged from the labor of the value they extract. Performing these mechanistic roles alienates the individual from the self: from rationally knowing the fulfillment of need, as the only need becomes wages or profits. Marx was inspired by Darwin as well, in conceiving of history as a complex, yet quotidian, process of change and the response to change. Alienation is what the individual experiences when reality contradicts the rational motivation of the species-being: when the individual's labor is not for the self-determination of the individual, which is simultaneously unique and universal, as a being of a social species. This alienation is reproduced outwardly because material (social) relations inform consciousness, from which behavior cannot be isolated. In capitalism, the behavioral response precipitates evidence of humanity's spirit, though as a broken one, and the empiricist unjustly casts these behaviors as both irrational and belonging to human nature. It is from this cynical perspective that the ideologues of liberal democracy necessitate the utilitarian state to ensure civilization progresses. But for Marx, the ills of society are products of contractual agreements in which can be no real consent. The norms and institutions of the superstructure reinforce, through violence and ideological mystification, that which produces them.

For Kropotkin, capitalism is a byproduct of the state. For Marx, the state is a reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. Marx understood the historical emergence of the capitalist mode of production as preconditioned by rational responses to perceived resource scarcity in stateless primitive societies. The theories of Marxism and anarcho-communism were developed through distinctly different methodologies. When the mode of reproducing existence is not accounted for as an objective material reality of consciousness, observations will be subject to an idealism in which it is possible to misknow reality. For this reason, agreements found among leftists may only superficially bridge an epistemic divide. Marx said, "Proudhon does not know that all of history is nothing but a continuous transformation of human nature." He meant that one simply cannot say what is innate: behavior is the response to a changing material reality transmuted by the subjective consciousness. Marx contended that we should consider humanity apart from our conceptions of nature because history cannot be explained in the non-human natural world. Marxism is scientific socialism because of dialectical materialism: a process philosophy which overcomes the limitations of empiricism, rationalism, and subjective idealism. It is a more complete theory of social phenomena. By this method, the institution of science can be understood to be oppressive due to it being ideologically reinforced as a reproduction of the oppression in the base of society. When it is recognized, by the historical application of dialectical materialism, that capitalism is responsible for the environmental plunder of colonialism, it is possible to conclude that our societal conception of "nature" has been white supremacist. I conclude with the suggestion that the cynical perception of "human nature" is the result of ideological mystification producing an epistemic impasse.

"Ideology does not exist in the 'world of ideas' conceived as a 'spiritual world.' Ideology exists in institutions and the practices specific to them. Ideology represents individuals' imaginary relation to their real conditions of existence. Ideology has a material existence. There is no practice whatsoever except by and under an ideology. There is no ideology except by the subject and for the subjects. Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects."

- Louis Althusser