Remember when you had the 2nd International, huge marxist parties like the SPD in Germany, all saying they would never support an imperialist war and were true marxists, and then when WW1 began they all sold out and supported the war? Good times. Very few, like Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg and Eugene Debs, remained true to marxism and opposed the war. Well i think a similar situation is happening now with the SMO in Ukraine.
From “democratic socialists” to MLs to maoists to anarchists, they all said they would never support US imperialism, they would never support a new Iraq WMD lie. And yet, when the SMO began and the west started demonizing Russia and beating the drums of war, most of these ostensibly “leftist” figures, especially western figures, sold out and supported the antirussian histeria. From BreadTube to YoungTurks to maoists like Marxist Paul to anarchists, they all sold out. Even some principled MLs like Second Thought and Hakim have shied away from condemning this war histeria and supporting Russia. I think this will be the collapse of the 2nd International of our era, the new divide between true antiimperialists and sellouts.
What are your thoughts?
I agree that this is headed in a bad direction. I personally don’t know how to “speak out” on this issue either. People have very steadfast positions on all of this that are baked into their identity. There is little to gain in engaging in discourse because everyone will agree with the basics until things get more specific and then it is the typical orientalism that starts flowing, or a hyper-moralized geopolitics. One can of worms after another gets opened and there is simply no way to contain the chaos especially when people are basically shouting over each other.
And even if it was easy to show people the situation and how marxism can be used to understand it and move forward, rhetoric can only do so much. Self awareness doesnt guarantee anything and politcal rhetoric is changing faster than people can catch on to which gives capital a massive advantage. The police state still exists and unfortunately the empire isnt going to crumble to peices in a glorious instant but could potentially persist long enough to totally sink humanity. The Roman empire declined for like a thousand years.
Not to be a doomer, the solutions exist imo, it’s just really tough to trudge through political conversations regardless of what environment I am in. We are living in trying times where all forms of understanding the world are put to the test, making dogmas and platitudes especially toothless.
Well put!
Does it constantly feel like you’re being concern trolled? Where you have a conversation and everyone agrees e.g. racism is bad, then you mention how capitalism is racial and we need to fight imperialism and they quickly change tune when they realise you mean things need to change for everyone if we’re to solve anything?