The keystone authorities in the application of dialectical materialism to political problems, from the Bolsheviks in Russia to Mao and Ho Chi Minh in East Asia, have all postulated that socialism cannot be developed in a universalist sense; that there is no one size fits all model for achieving the revolution and Marxists should instead seek to adapt their doctrines to the specific national circumstances of their time and place.

This process of adaptation is most evidently the case with Mao’s application of Marxism-Leninism to the national characteristics of his native China in the early 20th century, from which he and his cadre was able to identify a method and programme through which to build and organise a mass movement capable of not only seizing order out of the chaos of the Chinese civil war but also subsequently establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat capable of both effectively governing their country while at the same time quashing push back from reactionary social forces bent on safeguarding the old feudal privileges of the old society.

If the principles of this theory hold true, it should be possible to analyse the national circumstances of 21st century American society and identify a modus operandi for developing dual power, with an eventual mind to overturn the old society and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. What American social phenomena do you think demand adaptations necessary for the organisation of an American mass movement capable of carrying a proletarian revolution through to it’s conclusion? What is your analysis of American society? What obstacles stand in the way of class consciousness, what is the mechanism of their action and how do we defeat them?

  • Shaggy0291OP
    17·
    4 years ago

    Marxism-Leninism with American characteristics must be the radicalization of the Black Lives Matter movement and the decolonization of the nation. Anything short of that lacks materialist basis, and therefore lacks dialectical theory.

    I feel like this is a great overview on what some of the immediate objectives are. I’d like to delve further into the analysis of American civil society to really explore the scope of this enormous question down to it’s technical aspects, with a mind to break it down into it’s constituent parts and then analyse their relations so we might identify contradictions that both work for or against us. What, if any, significance does the urban/rural divide, religion, demography, physical geography, mass media, technology, art, the state apparatus, commerce, international relations, unique relations of production etc have on this objective? Can you identify any other significant sources of contradictions?

    I seriously feel that unless our analysis is both comprehensive and contemporary we can’t call it scientific. For example, the analyses of the BPP, while still enormously relevant on the questions of race which haven’t really changed since their era, falls short of a comprehensive analysis of America’s national characteristics as both the base and superstructure of America have changed significantly since their time. For example, the internet didn’t exist in what you could call it’s modern form until the early 90s, not becoming culturally relevant until the mid 90s and not achieving maturity into it’s current role until the early 2000s. They didn’t have the chance to comprehensively attack this issue from every angle, that task falls to the current generation.