Citizen B said some very intriguing things last meeting, and were it not for my dilapidated state, I might have responded on a good few points.
(Brief note on 'Datedneß of Capital' discußion; skip this paragraph for main topic)
Before I begin, one unrelated thing that also was discußed, posed by Citizen S: I posit that the potential 'datedneß' of Capital was aided by something Marx did not (I think) foresee. The publication of the Grundriße, Marx's notebooks which would contribute großly to the thought that, in the polished, published formation would be called Capital, I would say likely helped to eternally stave off a bit of datedneß, in the ability to comprehensively follow the tracks laid down in the march to making Capital. Two other aides, and a poßible third, I would suggest, would be firstly Marx's summary works that deal with the general portions of economic that Capital did, namely the Critique of Political Economy: Wages, Price, and Profit; Wage-Labour and Capital, (let me here declare that, it would have perhaps been advisable to read these latter two pamphlets in preparation for Capital, especially from a recruitment perspective, but as well from a mind to prepare the citizenry for the subject). The second aide I would soundly confirm is the major contribution by Engels to introducing Marxology to the maßes, in a far more acceßible way. The third, not my own suggestion, is that of either David Harvey or Terry Eagleton (I cannot rightly remember), that modern methods and modes of thinking and education have obscured those present in Capital. I do not have an opinion on the third. I am not comfortably equipped to engage in the same depth that Masters Eagleton and Harvey, such experienced studiers of Capital, are swimming at.
Now, to addreß the true matter of this article: Citizen B voiced some of his concerns on the rapid growth (and in his view the imminent rise of) fascism, and on many occasions has chastised the Left for not countering it. I have some things, as one might expect, to say in regard to this.
First, I should say that I as of late disagreed with Citizen B's aßeßment of the imminent danger of fascism, but now, as I have detailed in an article yet to be posted (likely the next after this one), I am deeply worried that fascists and liberals are indeed re-forging the old alliance against Soviet... excuse me, 'Rußian aggreßion'. I have seen fascists saying we need to gun down Rußian-Marxists in the streets, and liberals supporting them with a hearty laugh. Let us recall in 33 how the same was said, only of 'Judeo-Bolsheviks' and 'Soviet-Commies'. I can still see concretely in my mind, one of the first scenes in the Nazi reel Hans Westmar, the KPD (Communist Party Deutschland) speaker saying 'No nation will be able to withstand the Red wave... money is of no concern, Moscow knows its duty!'. The meßage is quite clear, and now the liberals of to-day are helping the fascists to repeat it ever louder.
And what will these liberals reap in return for their valiant efforts in supporting the nationalist cause? I am sure the Azov, Freikorps, Aidar et cetera Battalions will be more than generous in their weapons and aßorted insurrectionary training for their fellow fascists acroß the ocean. The liberals will cheer for this insurrection, unlike the invisible 'Insurrection' of the Sixth of January. This demonstrates the crisis that the bourgeoisie is facing at least abroad; for this war that is waging against Rußia now, is a war against Reds... CHINA! I have two sources for this, one alternative Right, the other ostensible 'Left'.
I. in Imprimis Volume 50, Number 12 (December 2021), in an article entitled 'What is the Great Reset' by Michael Rectenwald, there appears 'The Great Reset represents the development of the Chinese system in the West, but in reverse. Whereas the Chinese political claß began with a socialist political system and then introduced privately held for-profit production, the West began with capitalism and is now implementing a Chinese-style political system'. He then goes on to quote Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret '" the past five centuries in Europe and America" have taught us anything, it is that "acute crises contribute to boosting the power of the state. It's always been the case and there is no reason it should be different with the COVID-19 pandemic"'. A strong, corporate-backed state? Hmm, where have I heard about that type of ideology before!
II. In the ostensibly Leftist journal Dißent, there was an article called 'The Art of War', which went on about how the Chinese are totalitarian, brainwashed war-mongers, as exemplified by the People's Republic's new film release 'The Battle at Lake Changjin'. I do not think highly of this publication, and subscribe to it almost solely to see the CIA's current 'Leftist party line'. To this end, it seems that Rußia may not be the (at least primary) target in the Ukraine crisis, but the Proletarian Giant to its South. The CIA is using the Rußian Federation to both test the waters of public opinion and to ready said public opinion for direct confrontation with the People's Republic of China.
What is the connexion between the two points? In order to properly wage war against such a dangerous and advantaged opponent as the People's Republic of China (especially if the Rußian Federation wins against the Nazi Ukrany), the United States will, I believe, have to adopt a fascist form of government. There are so many disadvantages that are present at the moment, that a fascist government would perhaps be neceßary to lower the risk to acceptable levels for some kind of war with the PRC.
There is also the fear, that Citizen B mentioned, of liberals being so ignorant as to the proceßes going on around them. Most of them, exempli gratia, believe various spins on the Azov Battalion not being a Nazi militia, from denial, to feigning unknowing, to justification. At the same time, as Citizen B also pointed out, the liberals (spurred on by the mainstream lying-preßes) are utterly convinced that Donald Trump is literally Adolf Hitler re-incarnated with a spray-tan, and that the Sixth of January participants are a monolithic latter-day Sturmabteilung, whilst ignoring actual fascism, and in any case not doing anything whatever in relation to both of them! I have been telling Citizen B this for a long time; not only are liberals untrustworthy to build political movements on, but in most historical instances, the middle-claß liberals either outright supported fascism, or accepted the victory of fascism as 'not the worst of things'. It was only after fascists began suppreßing them that the liberals bothered to organise any resistance, and even then but half-heartedly.
Citizen B has often criticised Communists for not doing more for the struggle against fascism. But what would he have us do? Shoot Richard Spencer? Go to Donetsk and Lugansk to kill Azov soldiers? Hold a meaningleß protest against this or that supposed fascist event or group? He is ignoring the fact that we do not, none of the Leftist organisations and parties, have enough members to do anything of the sort. That is why most of us are more focused on membership growth and enlightenment. Until we have more members, this is all that we can do! But I would rebut Citizen B a bit, by in return asking why he dumped so much time and energy into a political campaign for a party that has made things, I think, more difficult for the development of the Left. And I would offer this defence for him; none of us are big enough to do something meaningful, so when a unique situation arises, we seek to apply ourselves to it in hopes of long-term benefit. Until another such situation occurs, we cannot produce large projects, all we may do is attempt to build ourselves to that high level where we might no longer need to rely on unique situations, or prepare ourselves to more fully utilise the next such situation. Holding a two- or three-man 'March against Fascism' is not going to change any minds, nor awaken liberals from their slumber, all it would do is waste the time, energy, and morale of our comrades.
Citizen B, furthermore, has in my opinion an unrealistic view as to where fascism will spring from, and the reason it exists, what purpose it serves. He seems to hold that fascism is a wholly independent ideological movement, and that because of this its members come to power mainly by revolution, by overthrowing the residing state. I do not believe this. Fascism is much like the Communist movements of the Socialist Bloc, in that the rise to power is not entirely organic an affair. There has to be a strong power already present to elevate fascism. This is not to say that fascism does not have some organic component, some capacity to develop its own ideology, but the arrival to power is not part of that. They may adopt policy which gets them closer to having enough support for entrance into power, but the decision is ultimately not in their hands. If fascists were to start a revolution at a wrong time, or in a stark manner to antagonise the bourgeoisie, they would be crushed immediately and painfully. If they started it at merely an inopportune time, they would be 'crushed' (wink wink, nudge nudge, Beer Hall Trial). I am firm in my conviction that the Democrats are the only party large enough in the United States to provide fascism the affirmation it requires to enter power, so Citizen B's contest that the next fascist movement will be wrapped in a Confederate flag, calling for the death of all immigrants, I find to be very unlikely. It is certain that these types of persons may compose the fascist paramilitary vanguard, but they will not be the arbiters of whether fascism comes to power. That decision will rest with a Democrat, be it Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Marx help us, GeneralMayor Pete ('Martial Law') Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg scares me far more than Trump ever did (well, Trump never did, but still), the constant valourisation of the military (more than any other candidate), the centrist path, the unapologetic support for imperialism, and the disgruntled veteran persona- that is much closer to fascism than any of the things characterising Trump. At the end, as I have said ad nauseum, 'fascism will not be elected or arisen into power; it will be appointed so by the powers that be'.
I am not, however, a revolutionary peßimist, and will now offer some closing advice. The lack of any maß, open Marxist-Leninist parties I find to be a dogmatic fear of deviating slightly from the normal party structure. What does it matter if there is one vanguard and one maß party following Marxism-Leninism? The West is not a good ground for vanguardism (presently), not least because no one in the West has enough time or commitment. What is one more Leftist party to the Wikipedia page? We should also be focusing not on anti-imperialism, but the tools that make both imperialism and domestic revolution more difficult. The weapon that is the bourgeois state must be undermined in every single way poßible, from the military budget, to the legal rights of citizens against government authority, the amount of taxes to fund the bourgeois state, and the various facades of 'Freedom and Democracy' hiding the true face of the bourgeois dicatorship. National and state autonomy would probably be an easy ißue to damage the strength of the bourgeois state, for if no nation is left in this rotting union, then DC will have to crush us all on its own. California, Cascadia, the Confederacy, the Republic of Texas, the Republic of Vermont, New England, all of these seceßionist nations, existing formerly or presently it does not matter, could cause maßive problems for the continuation of imperialism if effectively leveraged against DC's vaßalist-colonialist dictatorship. Communist parties must also stop tailing liberal social policies: open immigration, Gay Pride Nuremberg rallies, transgenderism in schools, enforced legalisation of drugs, Marx-awful post-modern architecture, slang, music, and art, et cetera are not popular policies with the proletariat, but with the CIA and the middle-claßes, especially the higher one goes within them. When proletarians and the active, grounded intelligentsia see Leftists advocating for this shite, they think that Leftism is a degenerate pastime of those academics who can pot-rot their brains all day, philosophising about the intricacies of the meaning behind gender and then painting an abstract portrait of a barely recognisable yet still unwelcomingly lewd combined anti-gender toilet-plungers with explicit body parts (to spite BIOLOGICALLY SCIENTIFIC socialist realism), or whatever the hell. Communist parties would do well to take note from the KPD and Bolsheviks in the formation of a party internal affairs and opposition intelligence ministry/kommißariat, and a paramilitary wing. The former I feel is self-explanatory, but the latter has a few motivating reasons that may not be clear at first. The obvious reason for a paramilitary is for security against the Rightist paramilitaries, and for the instance of a proletarian revolution or an insurrection against a fascist takeover, but I would remind that paramilitaries can serve as a propaganda tool. Marches, events, honour guard functions; the impreßion of all of these activities is boosted when a uniformed, disciplined, organised paramilitary is doing them. In a similar vein, Comrade Caleb Maupin spoke about the importance of party members being well-dreßed, and what an impact he witneßed personally this having in improving the outcomes of his political work, and I could not agree more! The above point about degeneracy applies here too. Dreß like a 'non-binary' pothead, be a 'non-binary' pothead. Exuding culture, strength, glory, wealth, and prosperity are important features which tell the onlooker at once what Communism stands for, what the calibre of its adherents are, and what they can expect under Communist rule. Indeed, I would say modern Communists are severely lacking generally on the propaganda front. Books and pamphlets, and increasingly in an aera of short attention spans and the tyranny of over-working, such literature only gets read after a positive reputation has been established. Unfortunately, most parties to-day are cults, broken, or too frightened to try something, old or new, that is out of 'le fashiaun moderne'. Unfortunately, this makes me powerleß to do anything; I am considered a radical of radicalism, my ideas deemed subversive by subversives (or so I thought them to be!). One would think that the strengthening of the movement and of the West be'th a crime.
If I had to describe the entire Leftist movement, social-democrats, anarchists, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, all of it, the word 'dogmatic' or 'stagnating' would, I think, be most accurate. Fasc-inatingly, the Right has been far more radical in the spread of new parties, policies, and projects. I will keep it short by pointing out the numerous trends and ideas categorised as the alternative Right (a few even anti-capitalist and anti-Enlightenment, particularly exciting for me), the rise of fascist parties, the reinvigorated push for the restoration of culture, and so on. Many of these Rightist parties do the correct thing, and that frustrates me deeply. Even more frustrating though perhaps is the things other countries' Communist and Leftist parties do correctly, which there ought to be no political (correctneß) qualms about following, and yet unimitated do these superior party policies remain. The Soviet Union was not built in one plan, however, so I don't expect to solve the problems in this one, tiny post on the infinite expanse of the internetwork.
I feel now the need in closing to reaßure, this article was not in any way a criticism or rebuttal of Citizen B, it was primarily a response to some interesting points in the discußion last Tuesday, which I might otherwise not have gotten around to responding to, nor even talking about full stop. It is my sincere hope that I have not misremembered or misinterpreted any lines of his thought, and that he, and everyone else, found this article remarkable in some fashion. (Please forgive any inconsistencies, poor wording, and sentence errors, this article was written spontaneously, without a script beforehand.)
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