When Socialists Become Nazis: on the American Party of Labor's Call for 'Incinerati[ng]... Fascists into the Sun (Red Phoenix Article)

24 May 2025.

Comrades, at this point in Leftist organisational history, I think that most of us active in these circles at least have the hinting suspicion, and those more heterodox of us comrades the formed notion, that the Left has a serious problem with a sociality of violence. This sociality, which has been said to also characterise liberalism in the phenomenon of cancel culture, or 'Woke Stalinism' (see Umut Özkirimli's Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke), characterises the Left indubitably both in times of rule or crisis, and at a lesser tempo in times of protest or defeat, and has risen, it seems, to the heights of the former, though we yet stand in the conditions of the latter.

Before we continue, a small matter of definition must be addressed. The sociality of violence, specially in the latter circumstances, does not exclusively encompass physical violence, or 'Lubyanka Justice': the sociality of violence includes most acts of disowning, or disenfranchisement from the party structure (shunning), or even from all of Leftist society (communal exile). For instance, purges, be they bloody or bureaucratic, are forms of violence in this sense, whereas reprimands, demotions, and expulsions, so long as they are not targeted towards specific groups, fall within normal, healthy organisational purview. Much of this, as historically learned comrades likely know, if they do not accept it for all its troubling concern, is what comprises the somewhat arbitrary line of division betwixt proper Bolshevism and the terror that is Yezhovshchina (called 'Stalinism' by Bolshevik-Leninists and Comrade Ryutin).

Now, with a definition stated and context established, the main subject may be discussed. As the title indicates, my hard-line Marxist-Leninist friend shewed to me something quite disturbing in the American Party of Labor's organ, The Red Phoenix. In issue thirty-seven of Spring 2025, the latest one just released at the time of this writing, there is an article entitled 'On The Efficiency of Launching Fascists into The Sun'. The purpose of this article, without, for the moment, taking into account the supposed genre of the article, is planning for the most optimal method for 'incineration' of the American Party of Labor's political adversaries, demarcated as 'fascists' in the traditional dogmatic Leftist terminology. Two quotes, if I may, which proved most repulsive to decency:

I. 'Rather than dropping the fascist into the sun directly they are instead first sent to the frozen wastes of the Sol system, far from her warming light. At its furthest point a small burn is performed, followed by generations of darkness as they plunge towards incineration'.

II. 'Perhaps when the Q come to judge us in the 24th century they will no doubt criticise our barbarity, but doubtless they would have to be a bit impressed by the style'.

I am going to analyse the worrisome trends and views embedded in the quotes separately. After that, I will pull the analyses together and the danger they pose to society and inter-Leftist relations. Finally, I will examine, broadly, similar accusations of a sociality of violence made against two other Marxist-Leninist parties generally considered to be hard-line, or politically-correct in the 'anti-revisionist' sense, as they might themselves prefer to have it said. The American Communist Party, the verily controversial one, will obviously be one of these parties.

The first quote's entailing paragraph begins with 'an efficient worker would minimise the labour they must carry out', and ends chillingly with 'a small burn is performed, followed by generations of darkness as they plunge towards incineration'. I blunt shall be: the only fascist I can right now see is Frau-Obergruppenführerin Allison P. And dear Comrade Allison, if you be no fascist, retract this gruesome article forthwith, and perhaps seek mental assistance, ere you hurt your political detractors, as a fascist should. At a time when the Left is being accosted for high-profile attentat-style political assassinations, the last thing we could possibly need is this article you have seen fit to write.

I think I do not need to say much more about what my problem is with this quote. It may be pithily summarised in recapitulation as "'efficient arbeiter" macht frei', for the APL's disturbing Final Solution via incineration of those they label 'fascist'. May I ask whether ,,fascist'' is still Sovjargnom* for Reform-Leninists, social-democrats, Bolshevik-Leninists, plus whichever other tendencies Hoxhaist fanatics should care to finally exterminate? If fascists are a smelly pile of Deng, then not even the Maofascists are safe, I fear. This is building to the point I will ultimately be making, but we must first opine on the second quote, which I believe anywise speaks to, or hints at my larger fear in better clarity.

*Soviet jargon nomenclature

I will bring your notice, quickly, to one more oddity in the first quote, that it uses the singular, more personal 'the fascist' rather than the general plural fascists. This suggests a concerning intellectual archetype to enact violence against, engendering an ideological (demagogical?) straw-man warranting a ,,just violence''. Indeed, by refusing to incinerate the fascist, in this twisted mindset, the APL should be electing to gas ,,unser [national]sozialistisches Bunkerland''. Behold how, with the slyness of ,,Comrade'' Yezhov, and the legal genius of Citizen-Procurator Vyshinsky, I have proved beyond a reasonable principle of proletarian law in defence of the socialist state and its folk from imperialist and ideological aggressors*, that these fascists calling themselves the APL, mock the intelligence of all communists by pretending themselves to be 'Hoxhaists'; to be innocently 'anti-fascists'; to be fellow Leftists! Comrades, I therefore move to liquidate the APLite Hoxial-fascists, for they are incontestably and are objectively the geheime Fraktion of fascism in our midst, the fifth-column in our ranks.

*Generally deemed 'lawfare' to-day. Who is to say the APL will not be someday forced to take the stand in the Tirana Trials? What a show of tragedy and irony that should be!

In this jest, I consider my point, my very contention inspiring the authorship of it, argued to satisfaction. Everyone knows Leftist in-fighting is real, substantiated by the Great Purge, and I am certain we have all seen instances of a liberal use of fascism charged against erstwhile comrades, or have heard of comrades being purged for having thoughts, if entirely private, which go against the party leadership's. Further, in the para-social æra, I am confident to surmise that all of us have also seen virulent hostility poised against other comrades present in the public sphere. Comrade Cutrone a National-Socialist, Comrade Studebaker a ,,Trumpzi'', Comrade Finnbol a Red Paedo-Fascist, Comrade Chamas (1Dime) a Reactionary-Fascist, Comrade Žižek a Postmodern-Fascist, so on. Then, you have Grover Furr insinuating Comrade Trotsky to be a Judeo-Fascist! Is my argument now made? Must I go on with something every Leftist, no matter how dogmatic, still secretly knows to be true? We have seen it all, even if some of us are too cowardly to say it so openly. Let us, then, continue to the second quote.

The first quote was plainly grotesque, thus inviting harsh polemicisation; the second quote represents nay such laughing matter in my estimation. Indeed, the second quote engulfs the first in the old adage that 'whatever the Nazis say out loud, is thought ten times worse'. With the invocation of Q-Anon as an outside observer, as perhaps an inverse Nürnberg judge of the APL's fantasies in politically-motivated mass-murder, we see a disturbing paradigm of historical record and ethical judgement as inherently fascist, anti-party weapons.

'They will no doubt criticise our barbarity', when divided from the particular judgement of Q-Anon, raises a very serious problem. If the APL can see criticism of its blood-thirsty rhetoric only in the light of a Q-Anon fifth-column conspiracy, then who may hold the APL accountable? Who is the APL willing to be beholden to in the procedure of justice? If Newton became mad with paranoia due to experiments in mercury, perhaps this is what happens when ,,Stalinists'' inhale too much uranium in an enclosed bunker! Being unreformably dogmatic Hoxhaists, the APL is convinced from high Red heaven that they are the one true Leninist vanguard party, given the hammer and sickle by Saint Ilyich himself, and conferred on Pope Enver I, their first party leader— which means the APL does not view itself as answerable even to the communist community as a whole. A rogue party with a dangerous mentality, perfect.

I will come back to my deeper thoughts on this when I open up the bigger picture to discussion in a moment, but there is one thing left I should first cover.

We come to the reprehensible glorification of violence in all its naked self-profession, 'doubtless they [Q-Anon] would have to be a bit impressed by the style'. Nayso, dear comrades of the APL, I am not impressed— not even a bit— by your bloody designs for a terroristic purge. You have now a larger problem in consequence of your ill-conceived sermon of crusading yezhovshchina: I, a communist inclined to uphold comradery amongst most tendencies, am nay longer certain whether I can trust you. What assurance do I have that you will not use my association by influence with Comrade Trotsky or Professor Deneen to execute me as a so-called 'fascist'? You can not but be murderers, unless you are able to prove that your conception of comradery is immutable, that you, in effect, practise comradery as a non-negotiable virtue, paramount to actually being a communist. This brings us back to the over-arching discussion from before. I close my examination of the second quote by underlining sharply that this ,,impressive style'' of an æsthetic christened in blood-shed as an ideal, is incontrovertible evidence that the APL worships, to some extent, a repulsive sociality of violence.

As I was previously saying, this frigid isolation I think to be a circumstance nearly unique to the APL, and a source of the problem of the APL's paranoia-fuelled refusal to be accountable to any outside force, which should be necessary for a legitimate procedure of justice to enable judgement. As Comrade Cutrone has implied, and as I myself affirm, it is better for any Leftist party to be engaged with other such parties, be it exclusively critical, or exclusively polemical; the really dangerous side of a party as centralised institution tends to reign when the party becomes so isolated, that it is then indispellibly paranoid. Comrade Stalin, though it may be easier, less traumatic to pretend so, was not paranoid, for the entire Party and the internal affairs apparatus were (nutters with paranoia, that is). This Comrade Bukharin and Comrade Khrushchev understood, if Comrade Ryutin and Comrade Trotsky did not quite.

That we have thus established how dangerous it is for a party to be isolated, and conversely how healthy any form of engagement, regardless what disposition, is for these parties, I will provide specific, practical evidence of the APL's alarming failure in this, and hence its turn towards constant internal party purges of local leadership and its weaselly Chekist infiltration of Progressive political communities, both activities furthering its paranoia-induced self-destruction.

Let us begin with a look at the ,,pseudo-socialist'' wrecking opposition (the Crypto-Fascists I bet!). The notorious American Communist Party, often considered the prime example of a party with a sociality of violence (by Comrade Tutt, to give one outspoken example), does not appear so violent to me, despite my jabs in jest to the contrary. Certainly, Comrade Khrachvik lunging at Comrade Trotsky with what I believe to be a machete, being used as a video thumb-nail, is distasteful, and whilst Comrade al-Din's Mongol Hunnic guerrilla hordes stage-play is rather silly, infantile even, I do not sincerely consider these to be genuine expressions of the desire to commit physical violence. I do not believe that comrades in the ACP leadership would actually stab a Bolshevik-Leninist comrade or a Trump supporter, were they to be greeted by one. The fact that they are criticising the ICL-Spartacists and the CPUSA in a free and public space is to me proof of this. SO far, nay article in Red America, the official party journal, has come to my attention that talks about doing unprovoked physical violence (murder on the mass degree!) to political opponents, but perhaps I have just missed it.

We have accounted for the most controversial party in this matter, but let us briefly give mention to another popular hard-line Marxist-Leninist vanguard party, an old favourite of this Netlog's, the Party of Communists USA. The PCUSA... dear Marx, I never thought I'd have to talk about it again.

Well, the PCUSA loves to criticise the Communist Party USA, which is good, but I fear it is thanks only to its historical links with (and potentially the purported dementia of) the PCUSA's leader Comrade d'Angelo. Never the less, it is still a good thing for whatever the duration it may last. Yet this is the very foundation for my misgivings altogether about the party. From what my friend, a former member told me (here), and what I learned when the People's School Faction broke away to form the short-lived American Council of Bolsheviks (here), the PCUSA has an unhealthy penchant for semi-regular, and severely disruptive internal party censorship (the Discord communications lock-down crisis) and undemocratic, unaccountable cadre and regional chapter purges (videre licet Comrade Dankeykang, and I believe some 'district/branch foreman' named Comrade David, plus my friend and the People's Schoolers, of course). Lastly , it is a shame, but, again possibly a symptom of dementia, that Comrade d'Angelo is also extremely paranoid. His obsession with the old CPUSA stems from the liquidation of his regional party chapter, back in those trying and bitter days of the USSR's dissolution. To quote Comrade d'Angelo verbatim, 'we call them party wreckers'. Methinks his psyche has been irreparably damaged for trustfulness, by the sheer betrayal— a hurt I can appreciate and that I sympathise with, having just mildly felt it for myself, so far. I am inclined to agree with my friend that the rest of the leadership, as with Comrade Stalin during the Doctors' Plot, are corruptly manipulating the poor old man for their own nefarious ends (stoking his fear).

There remains but the APL itself. From what I have observed, the APL is one of the only parties for which three concerning points are true:

I. The APL does not acknowledge or attempt to engage in any way with the wider Leftist movement outside its own small tendency (barring point III).

II. The APL launches such large and consistent purges (particularly department/role-appointed leadership) that the party's ability to recruit new cadres actually under-performs in the shadow of the rate of purge expulsions.

III. The APL is the sole party, maybe besides some over-zealous, obscure Bolshevik-Leninist cells, that uses its members like Chekists, infiltrating Progressive groups: not to ideologically steer them as per the Bolshevik-Leninist tactic of entryism, but to perniciously spy on them and, I strongly suspect, hinder their efforts

Everyone knows that our Bolshevik-Leninist comrades may at times take their entryism a bit too far, but to secretly insert, what can I call them but 'covert operatives'? into fellow Leftists' organisations for the purpose of quiet intelligence gathering is obscene, absolutely repugnant, and it goes without saying, horrendously uncomradely. Here I thought I should have to look out for FBI agents, but nay indeed; just as in 1938, it is 'our own people' who will shoot us in the head. I feel so comforted, knowing I can look forward to the gentle hands of a dear comrade snapping my neck, what a relief! Literally Albania 1984?

You may be rightly asking what evidence lends me to make such a serious accusation. I shall prove all three of my points at once, but discretion, too, weighs upon my tongue. During the Sanders Campaign, my Marxist-Leninist friend and I were organsing with a local group. I was a publicly self-professed Marxist-Leninist, and my friend was in the process of joining the APL (starting to see why I call them spies?). Now, the APL apparently purged the secretary/official who was handling the recruitment of my friend, which he found out two years later. One Sebastian Lemba, perhaps the single stable (cult of personality?) leader in that whole party, made some semi-cryptic reference to their 'man on the inside' or whatever, and that this Chekist agent would send my friend his 'instructions'. However dogmatic a Yezhovite-,,Stalinist'' my friend might sometimes appear to be, I assure you, he is unequivocally not a traitor to his comrades, and thereafter the Agent Police of Lubyanka lost an asset, for he had lost all interest in the APL with this fell business.

After all, the evidence arose as a result of my friend telling this 'classified intelligence' to me. It was nay secret, certainly not to him, that I was starting to scrutinise dogma and the terrors of yezhovshchina. The APLchik, in good secret police practise, never approached us, and kept pristine count of his few words, avoiding as much interaction as practicable. My investigation was happening after the group had died out somewhat (the Sanders Campaign had at this point begun to sack local leaderships for substitution by their own national bureaucrats), so it is not as exciting a tale as the Old Man's experiences in Mexico; we had already lost, much like in Spain, and ,,Comrade'' Lemba was smiling from the Kremlin as Sanders' national teams purged the Left and our leaders for him. What is it the Oppositionists used to say? 'Punch a Liberal, and the NKVD will arrest you for assaulting a ,,People's'' asset'?

Alas, we never found that NKPLD rat, but we did by a stroke of luck find his handler. I hesistate immensely to divulge the name. I have already taken a gamble by insulting the glorious one-true-party and its even gloriouser glorious leader and his most glorious security apparatus. When I made a joke about Comrade Garrido killing me, it is because I do not think Comrade Garrido (or the ACP in general) would murder me! I am much more afraid of the aloof, isolated, and paranoid APL, and I only make fun of fellow comrades, whom I happen to have disagreements with.

This is my case, presented in full. Contrary to popular belief, the American Party Labor vastly surpasses the American Communist Party and Party of Communists USA as a danger to the efficiency and potential safety of those who do not share its fanatical views. Unlike the two aforementioned parties, the APL has expressed positive support for a sociality of violence, writing in favour of politically-motivated indiscriminate murder of any they deem to be 'fascist', in their party's organ, The Red Phoenix.

Which leaves us with one last matter to cover: does the genre as 'comedy', if this is what should be claimed, excuse and defuse what fears we may have? Curtly stated, absolutely not. Why? Why does the ACP get let off for this? Do not play stupid, we have just injuncted the ACP for the idiotic, distasteful things it says, the simple fact being that, as far as I am aware, it does not dare put it in print, or actively spy on other Leftists or call for the immolation of its political opponents. Should the ACP eventually be found to be partaking in such heinous acts, then by all means, as communists, it is our duty that we reprimand them duly for it. Until then, the APL is demonstably committing these crimes against comradery. The ACP is also a young party, just to say, without granting an argument therefrom.

In a post-modern age of tired sarcasm, communists ought to hold higher standards. When a communist and his party proclaim something, nay matter how minute or funny it be, if it is not labelled expressly as a jest, then it must be taken as truthful conviction. The APL is not a netlog/web-log, it is supposed to be a political party, there is officially less lee-way.

I am not suggesting you can not dance during the revolution. But fuck's sake, do not joke about murdering people of a specific political ideology (in print at the very least)! Is it too much to ask? Specially in the organ of a communist party, lest the ghoul of Yezhov terrorise anew. The Left, such an enigma, nothing scares the shite out of me more than the highest hope it grants me.We are already being blamed for acts of political terrorist assassination. The anarchists failed to achieve anything with their attentats, and the Narodniks failed with their attentats, but I am sure the APL will kill just the right kind and just the right amount, this time. So now the APL is calling for mass-attentats...

idiocy.

As any true Bolshevik would know, neither attentats on the one side nor mass-class-murder on the other can lead to socialism.

I had thought this was basic Leninism. What a depressing state of affairs.

This is why I hate party politics, and vanguardist party politics in particular. But on a happier particle, stay read for an article on Friendship and the Left and one on the Four Nosts and Stroikas.