PARTISAN!

Brunhilda Olding laments the watering down of socialism, and explains how we can reverse this trend through critique and engagement with theory.

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The distortion of what the word Socialism, Communism, or even Marxism means is hardly a new problem. Yet at the height of the Global Thermidor and amid a historical period overwhelmed by distortion, the problem is one that must be analysed in order to be overcome. Socialism is a word with a very clear definition in the works of Marx, one of the many great revolutionary theorists of the movement. Socialism, no if or buts about it, is a mode of societal production in which the working class controls the means of production. When the workers, through their democratic will, determine how society is governed. It is not the existence of welfare within a capitalist society, nor is it so called ‘market socialism’. If you cut through the nonsense, Socialism has a clear definition.

We live in a time in which the words ‘socialist’ and ‘communist’ have gone from referring to those willing to fight for a complete negation of the status quo, into being a way of making yourself appear hip and cool to the youth. For in an age wherein critiques of capitalism abound, and in ‘left-wing’ circles they are almost ubiquitous, calling yourself a socialist endows you with a level of perceived radicalism. This is best demonstrated in the viewpoint that millions have of Bernie Sanders, or Jeremy Corbyn, as fire-breathing radicals seeking to burn down the system and install a ‘Stalinist/Trotskyist/Tankie’ dictatorship. There is no road to worker’s power laid out in their programs. Nothing beyond making the lives of the imperial working class less harsh, as much as Corbyn appears to be more committed to an internationalist position than Sanders. We see this same problem in Australia with the Victorian Socialists claiming to be a Socialist party, yet once again an analysis of their programs as undertaken by Comrade Anthony Furia of the RCO reveals the fundamental lack of genuine revolutionary demands. A look through their platform and program reveals it to be nothing more than a rewording of that of the Greens, with the word “socialism” included for good measure. The core of this so-called socialism is revealed at its heart to be nothing more than a tired Laborism that dilutes and perverts genuine revolutionary actions and analysis.

The bare faced lie of “socialist” Laborism has been popularised particularly under the name of ‘democratic socialism’, an ideological trend founded in its modern sense by Michael Harrington, an American Anti-Communist who spent a good amount of his political career defending American capital from “Soviet despotism”. This legacy is imprinted both on the organisation he founded, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the many who followed his ideological tendency. This trend took the form of rabid Anti-Communism, and a slavish devotion to upholding the bourgeois institutions of the United States. A trend that thankfully is under attack, thanks to the rise of groups such as Marxist Unity, Red Star, and Communist Caucus. Nonetheless the ideological legacy left by the DSA has imprinted itself on the US left.

However, this is in many ways unsurprising, the label of socialism has tended to be a broad one, which ranged from the Utopians of Saint Simon to the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels. Yet within a new age where socialism no longer even has the baseline of the Soviet Union, the word socialist has become nothing more than that. A word. Ideology to most politically active youth is just a buzzword to show that you’re on the ‘right side’. To give an example from the author’s sadly long experience, the number of young adults or teenagers willingly declaring themselves socialist is in many ways an exciting development, until you look inside their views. For them socialism just means that tired phrase ‘Eat the Rich’. For most Anglosphere youth socialist simply means ‘I’m cool and progressive’. It has become a label that can be applied to anyone who thinks that the marginal tax rate should be 0.00025% higher on capital gains.

Some of the most blatantly Laborist people the author has had the misfortune to interact with has declared themselves to be a democratic socialist. These are people who once again think that Bernie Sanders is the furthest left you can go. Yet in many ways their own ignorance, and theoretical incompetence will serve as their own funeral. The more important problem in this period of increasing contradictions is how declaring oneself a Communist has become, in many ways, the height of this commodification of ideology. Yet to comprehend the roots of this flawed understanding of Communism we must in turn discuss the history of the modern term.

The history of modern Communism can be traced to the betrayal and split in the Second International, as the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe betrayed their working-class membership by supporting their respective governments in the war of 1914-18. A key example of this is the revisionist actions of Eduard Bernstein. The revolutionary wave of the 1910s and 20’s saw the first decisive break between Communists, and those merely using the label as a tool for securing power amongst workers. These falsifiers were by no means relegated to outside the Communist International, just as many genuine Communists were outside it. As the World Revolutionary Wave met its initial end in the bloodshed of the Second World War, the Cold War saw new heights of obfuscation. A key example of this is the ‘Eurocommunist’ trend, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s. A tactic which fundamentally failed – neither the PCE, PCI, or PCF have won a single election under this approach, which was their aim when they adopted it. Further, the essential core of such a Eurocommunist trend was, in the most optimistic interpretation, blatant reformism, and under a more critical approach appears purely as an abandonment of communist principles as a whole.

However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the Marxist-Leninist block in general, a new problem has emerged amongst those who proclaim themselves to be Communists, one that in the author’s experience has affected the Marxist-Leninist sects particularly hard. This problem is a complete lack of a theoretical grasp among so-called communists, and rather than reading Marx or Lenin themselves they often base their politics purely upon the aesthetics of supposed Marxist-Leninist governments, and ignoring any and all actions required to establish a genuine understanding.

This fallacy is at the root of the ‘Patriotic Communist’ movement. A movement that is about as Communist as the Partito Nazionale Fascista. This complete lack of actual theoretical analysis or action distorts Communism into nothing more than an aesthetic. If calling yourself a socialist in ‘left-wing’ circles grants you the illusion of radicalism, calling yourself a Communist while disavowing previous experiments grants you an air of tolerated edginess. In the case of many self-proclaimed Communists, if their positions are analysed with a materialist base, you find that they are nothing more than radical liberals waving hammer and sickle. Then you have those in the contemporary “communist” movement who cling desperately to the Soviet Union, or the People’s Republic of China. Of course, when you investigate their theoretical library, you’ll be lucky to find anything more than Stalin, Grover Furr, and, if you are lucky, perhaps Mao. Now this is not a call to ignore theoretical trends, a true Communist must understand all the trends of this movement, and make use of ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’.

The task of Communists at this moment, must be to return to Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other great thinkers. We must analyse their works, critique them, adapt them, and continue their revolutionary legacy. Yet with these movements despite their proclaimed radicalism the only symbol of that radicalism is the merchandise they sell, the hammer and sickles emblazoned on their banners, and the empty phrases they repeat year after year.

There is no revolutionary analysis or theory, instead it is just a hammer and sickle in the logo as the only symbol of their self-proclaimed Communism. For this is the greatest victory of the capitalist hegemony we live in has forced onto the movement the commodification of the very agitation that calls for the destruction of the capitalist system. This in itself is perhaps one of the greatest victories of Capitalism. A situation wherein the movement that represents the greatest threat to the current status quo, is distorted, revised, and weakened into nothing more than a label.

So, what is to be done? There are three fundamental tasks that lie before us as Communists. The first is simple, and can be summed up in the immortal words of Joe Hill – ‘Don’t Mourn, Organise’. The raging sectarianism of the modern Communist movement must be overcome, this is not to be done by enforcing a singular theoretical viewpoint onto the movement but rather by the establishment of a mass party united under the mechanism of programmatic unity. The second s a return to Marx. As much as the great man focus on Marx, Engels, and Lenin is fundamentally un-communist and ignores the very pillars of the philosophy for which we argue, these are the men who built up the theoretical core of the modern movement. We do not understand Marx by reading ‘Why Marx was right’ or ‘Marx rediscovered’ because that implies that Marx needs to be rediscovered – no, we understand Marx by reading him. Our third task is to learn the lessons of history, we must understand why the USSR fell, why state capitalism managed to undermine the Marxist-Leninist block, and why our movements succumbed to reformist social-imperialism, and learn from these mistakes.

Nonetheless we must never give up hope. We as Communists know that the workers of the world are chafing under this system, we know that the world is ours for the making. So all of us must march to the barricades, must build up solidarity and fight against false consciousness, we must fight for total liberation of all.

‘The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!’

-Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848).