In my opinion, the people like Maupin, Jackson Hinkle, and especially the Infrared YouTube channel (people like Haz) have not engaged in the debate in good faith AT ALL.
But moreover, I do believe that patriotism, certainly “American patriotism”, has no place in the ML movement. I believe in the working-class, but I wouldn’t want to muddy the waters with cheap appeals to what would essentially be working-class conservatism and chauvinism. I won’t say much more than the fact that my comrades and I have been talking about this extensively and all agree: decolonization comes first and foremost. Landback is a must and many people, of all races and ethnicities, have been hurt by colonialism and neo-colonialism as well as imperialism both within and outside the United States, the original indigenous inhabitants being a prime example.
I hope I haven’t said anything to offend anyone, but I support Landback and decolonialism. I even originally became an ML in part due to Berta Caceres’s murder in Central America. In the CPUSA, Browder was very controversial and was fought against as he became more and more unpopular (until he was finally ousted, in huge part because of his “Americanism”). SO even then: the issue of “American patriotism” was suspect. I think that we live in a much more radical and interesting time where decolonization must take center stage now more than ever before.
That Haz would say that “indigenous peoples” or Native Americans have no place in the ML movement is folly; we should be doing more to not only comfort them but make us more available to them as a movement, not decry them or anything.
Anyways, enough Twitter drama. I took a break from most social media and I feel much better now. But I think Maupin/Haz (Infrared)/Jackson Hinkle have belittled and side-stepped the issues at stake, from what I’ve seen of their content.
It does the wider communist movement a disservice when people claiming to be CPUSA members (who obviously aren’t or can’t be traced back to in the databases) and people who certainly are CPUSA members (albeit, from what we can tell, a minority so far in the organization) try to appeal to right-wingers and sometimes even believe in their nonsense. Well, I can’t say much more about the organization other than what’s on display on Twitter, but I do think that one should be open about all this.
Welp, that’s all I have for now.
I posted this below, but I always ask these US “patriotic socialists” what there is to be patriotic about with respect to the US colonialist project?
Its always one of two reasons: “multiculturalism”, which Dunbar-Ortiz has a wonderful article about here, or the labor struggles of the early 20th century, which undeniably had the aim of destroying most of the foundations of US society, and were correctly labelled “unpatriotic” by the red-scare-mongers of the time.
Every pillar of US society (which all mostly come from the Roman empire), its conquest of land, genocide of the native peoples, its founding slave-owners, its founding documents, its private-property system, its imperialist goals, are antithetical to socialist aims, and there is nothing worth being patriotic about there.
Hey, this is an aside, but thank you so much for recommending An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. I found it a few weeks ago thanks to your posts!
No probs!
I think the author of the article linked in the comment you replied to is the one who wrote it.
labor struggles were correctly labelled “unpatriotic” by the red-scare-mongers of the time
Surely you can tell that this objectively places you with the red scare mongers, against the communists?
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Your question is rhetorical and can only have one answer: no serious person can find pride in a colonialist project, assuming you don’t have hate for a people, and you don’t have class interest i.e. are benefiting off the murders yourself. It’s a good point though because it shows exactly the point of contention: the question is not to be proud of the settler-colonial reality of the US.
Instead, consider this: do you live in present day US? do you want to build socialism here? Do you believe socialism will help our people? Socialism would by definition destroy the imperial projects of the US abroad, so wouldn’t that also help people the world over?
Think of the people living in present day US, the people who have been wronged by capitalism, racial injustice, for generations and generations since slavery, since the colonial expansion of the US, year after year, for the profits and power of the ruling imperialist bourgeoisie. How many lives have been lost, how many ways have we been wronged and abused? How many imperialist wars were forced onto the world by a handful of oligarchs?
If this reality fills you with a sense of justice and love for the people, the real working people here and the people of the world, if this fills you with a sense of duty and responsibility to take over the Empire for humanity’s sake, then not only are you in accordance with a inevitable reality: socialism will win, but you are, by the strict definition of the word, being patriotic.
What is often done in these conversations is to take the bourgeoisie’s lies as the only reality: if you love your neighbors, you will support the destruction of Libya. There is division in this world, you have to take a side, but it’s not us vs the thieves and murders on Wall St and in DC, it’s the Asians and Muslims and that’s why we had to bomb them. You live paycheck to paycheck, cannot pay medical bills, have no power in the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, but you have all these “freedoms” and that’s why they hate America.
These are all lies and we cannot let them confuse us. We do love our people, but not the bourgeoisie. We do have to take a side, but it’s our side, the working people, immigrant or not. We are patriotic, but it’s not for the imperialist and settler colonialist state (which are realities, no one denies this) that the bourgeoisie wants us to think is good for us, but we are patriotic for the socialist future we will build together as the people of present day America. We do want freedom, but it’s not the bourgeoisie’s definition of freedom, it’s power to the people.
In a way, it’s about what do you mean by “America”, the people or the capitalist settler colonial state? What do you mean by patriotic, loving the people and being in service of them or supporting the imperialist war machine? To reason in good faith, we must realize each side is referring to different things. When you point out the murderous history and present of the USA, you are not blaming the working class or shunning their revolutionary spirit. In the same way, when you say a better socialist world is possible, you are not denying the worst of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism.
Thanks for the replies. I skimmed through them and plan to go through them after work today.
My thoughts are emphatically decolonial. Even the “patriotic” MLs of the past were over-blown; most were not that “patriotic” to begin with and used “Americanism” (same as the Black Panthers afterward with their reading of people’s constitutional rights) to either defend the few democratic rights we have or criticize America as it is materially…
Obviously, I believe in landback; I believe in decolonialism. So that’s my position, wholeheartedly. But thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone, whether I emphatically disagreed with them or not.
I once had a long conversation with an “anarcho bolshevik” on twitter who had made disparaging comments to me about the Soviets because they “signed a pact with Hitler”.
When I pointed out the Soviets were the last European country to sign a pact with Hitler, that they had worked tirelessly since 1933 to build an anti-nazi pact which was scuppered by Uk and France (who helped the fascists take over Spain in the spanish civil war whilst only Mexico and Soviets came to defence of the Republican government).
When I pointed out that Chamberlain wasn’t merely an “appeaser” as British propaganda has tried to put him as but an active collaborator, especially with the Munich pact a year before the Molotov Ribbentrop pact. Where Chamberlain and the British foreign policy went into overdrive to ensure that the French would not initiate the defence pact that the Soviets and French had signed to protect Czechoslovakia. (the Czech president, understanding that if only the Soviets came to their defence it would likely turn into an all out “anticommunist war” had demanded that the Soviets could only come to their defence if France came first.
I even pointed out until April 1940 the British were running spy planes into USSR looking for targets to bomb during the “phoney war” period".
I pointed all this out and the “anarcho bolshevik” finally said “you still shouldn’t sign a pact with Hitler”.
Faced with this utter removedation I had an almost epiphany in exactly how idealism and a lot of the left sees itself. Their ideology is this untouched beautiful thing untainted by actual reality.
And because they never intend to actually build or take power and instead remain a lone beautiful voice against the harsh wind of reality they can essentially build whatever castle they like in the sky.
The opportunism of the likes of Jason Unrue and the rest of the Western Left (if this is what you’re referring to the video of Haz discussing with Jason) revealed itself so totally and completely in that discussion and shown 3rd worldism for the bankrupt opportunist and ultra left ideology that it is/
When Haz posits to Jason exactly how he intends to come to power Jason starts mumbling about “climate change will probably wipe us out” (nevermind that the most influential climate change book The Limits to Growth was funded by David Rockefeller and the neo-malthusian society likely as a psyop against society that “doom is coming” to prevent optimism or revolutionary ideology becoming popular )
There is no decolonisation. Colonialism happened and left it’s scars on the world. Are the burgers going to send all their whites back to Europe? (fuck right off we don’t want them)
The Soviets were patriotic for their country (as they should be)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/yaroslavsky/1941/war.htm
And likewise Marxist-Leninists must be patriotic for their countries and pick the kernels of patriots that can represent the new socialist society (I don’t really care what Burgers pick nor would I know as I’m not a Burger or in Burgerstan). USA has lots of working class history socialists should champion and push forward as patriotic.
Ceding the ground on patriotism to the right is, tactically, amazingly stupid.
But a lot of this is ultra left whining from idealists that have zero intention of actually taking power in Burgerstan
Real communists understand that communism (and by extension communists) being built, in this world not imagined ones, is not a beautiful thing.
Sometimes communists must take slaps in the face and sit there and take it. (Much like Lenin did in Brest-Litvosk in signing one of the most humilitating treaties in history or Stalin did by signing Molotov-Ribbentrop).
De-colonialism and sending white Burgers back to Europe is not happening in a million years. That is the slap Americans need to take in the face then they need to go out and present the best elements of the American working class and communist movement and turn them into American patriots and banners to signal socialist revolution in USA.
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Being patriotic towards the USA is very different from beifn patriotic towards DPRK, Vietnam etc. All the quotes you list talk of patriotism towards oppressed nations.
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I was going to write a reply but am too tired. Maybe later.
Edit: how do you define patriotism exactly?
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Haz’s mistake was to go after Luna like he does after breadtubers.
Well, that was just the latest in a string of terribly bad decisions, the first of which was opening their youtube account.
If there is a place for nationalism in the left, then surely there must be a place for nationalism in USA communists? I’m reminded of Vizzion’s statement, who said it was difficult to be patriotic in Germany because of the nazis, but that if you are not patriotic, if you do not love your compatriots and want to improve their lives, then why are you a revolutionary? Just because it’s fun, just because it’s edgy?
With that said I absolutely abhor Haz’s online persona, which is exactly the same as the anarcho-cringe breadtubers I rant about. Their weird brand of “american communism” is off the mark by several degrees, which prompted luna to call them agents provocateurs. There is no way to reconcile the symbols of imperial America with revolutionary theory and praxis.
Haz was actually the first person I heard talk about sublimating capitalism with communism, and I think it’s a very apt word for everything we do. Yet they do not want to sublimate the symbols of imperial america with symbols of revolutionary america. There is this pervasive feeling that we have to reach out to the right at the cost of our revolutionary theory that I see a lot. Yes, we have to integrate workers no matter their political stance. We will be able to reeducate them in time. But no, we should not have to compromise marxism-leninism to achieve that.
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On the point of symbols, each person can have their own personal opinion and feelings about them, like the flag for example.
However, the only thing that will determine what will happen moving forward is the American people as they seize a (future) revolutionary moment. We can have symbols and flags for the parties, for your socialist groups, but only the people of a socialist country will decide what works for them.
In that sense, we cannot preemptively design what the flag will look like. We cannot preemptively tell working class people they should burn the flag, or get used to a new one. Only once American socialism has gained power will symbols be defined and used. Until then, anything else is playing pretend.
It is for that reason that there is no point in centering what we do to the current imperial flag. Why talk to people about symbols if there’s no broad political or class consciousness yet about what the symbols are even supposed to represent? What’s the point of declaring to the world that you hate the flag because it represents imperialism without first having everyone listening be convinced of anti-imperialism? An analogy: Why scold people for liking a luxury brand or buying a product (a personal act) if they aren’t already against monopolies and capitalist materialism (a class analysis)?
At this stage, with no communist power, our priorities need to be class consciousness and analysis of power structures, not symbols of class and state or personal feelings (yet)
I don’t go to twitter, so I have no idea what this is about, but I do have something to add/talk about regarding patriotism in the western left.
If you look at Patriotist movements around the world, many of them tend to favour anti-imperialism, self-determination, and mirror Nationalist sentiments, but in a more softcore sense. Patriotist movements aren’t inherently bad, just as Nationalist ones aren’t, but when we look at them in a western context, we see a strong political bias from them. But, who woulda guessed the people who colonized and imperialized the globe would have a far-right sentiment when talking about protecting themselves from outside influences.
In the US, before the red scare, patriotism and American Socialisms went hand in hand often. It wasn’t uncommon to see far-left organisations of all stripes make calls to patriotism to further ingrain left-wing sentiment within their target audience. As well, in the modern world, there is an argument that’s worth mentioning that calls to patriotism still have value. But, if we look at the left-wing organisations in the US that make calls to patriotism today, you’ll find that it’s primarily right-DSA aligned groups. Or, to put it in twitter liberal terms, socially woke but economically broke aligned groups. I.E. they care about social issues, but don’t care about fighting capitalism passed the aesthetic of saying “capitalism bad”
The American Iron Front is the group I see making the biggest appeals to patriotism, they’ve put an American flag on their logo, “American” is in their name, they constantly talk about ‘patriotic duty’. They’re essentially what happens when you fetishise the WWII western front, then suddenly Nazis show back up… which is literally what’s happened and why they exist. But, post-red scare, you can’t make calls to American patriotism without also making calls to anti-communism, so of course every left-wing group who tries to use patriotism also uses anti-communism. Which is where their “left-wing” gets a hole.
Groups in the US that use patriotism inherently lean towards the right, and anyone who tries to use patriotism for a fascist, imperialist, and colonialist country as a means of inspiring left-wing sentiment is only using left-wing aesthetic to push pro-capitalist narratives.
This 100%… the patriotism of imperialized nations can’t really be equated with those of the imperial nations. It’d be as wild to our ears as being “patriotic” to the Roman empire, or British empire.
I always ask people: what exactly is there to be patriotic about in the US experiment?
Its almost always either the multiculturalism trope, which Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz gets into here, or labor struggles, which were deemed completely unpatriotic at the time and had several red scares against them. There were even a few “patriotic socialist” movements in the US in the 1920s that were racist as hell, and excluded non-whites or other immigrant groups.
Yeah very well said. I don’t know since when but the defining feature of the USA is anticommunism and even in its formation the core values are antithetical to communist ideals. I cannot envision a socialist USA even if I can envision of a socialist India. Patriotism towards USA makes no sense to me because of that.
I think everyone should ignore personal drama. Also, it should be cleared up that Haz of Infrared is not a member of CPUSA and has never claimed to be. He has never said that indigenous peoples have no place in the ML movement. He’s said that he’s in favor of giving land back to indigenous peoples, but he is opposed to “land back” as a slogan, as he sees it as meaningless. Basically, like the anarchist slogan “defund the police”, it has a wide range of interpretations, from expanding autonomous areas of the US, to transferring all us public land into indigenous hands. I’ve even seen discourse online among communists who want to deport all white and african american people back to Europe and Africa. It was joked that these people should be deported to the ocean, if it was logistically impossible to resettle them.
Anyway, the issue of American patriotism comes back to the American state. There is a sort of anarchist line of thought that sees America as ideally evil and that it needs to be abolished immediately. Realistically, this isn’t going to happen. Instead, the state will be transformed into a dictatorship of the proletariat with the goal of building socialism in one state. How can any of this be accomplished if the people have no love of country?
