When the revolution happens do you think it will Marxist-Leninist, because it will have become more popular as it can prescribe a new socialism for our material conditions, or more Anarchistic in character, because of the individualistic ideology of the west?
Edit: thanks everyone for your responses, answering my questions and more.
There’s been a good amount of threads with this question you can search for that have great answers, but IMO the US and the rest of the imperial core, as per Lenin’s law that capitalism breaks at the weakest links in the chain, will be the very last countries on earth to have a revolution.
The US empire will fade out of history the same way the British and Roman empires did, with a pathetic, hundreds of years long whiny decline into political turmoil and international obscurity, while it eats itself internally and depopulates as its poor leave or are sacrificed on the altar.
Anarchists can’t have a successful revolution because they can’t organize installing a light bulb, let alone organizing cross-industry production or a coordinated military defense of a city. It had its go in the 19th and 20th century and failed, and should only be studied by historians as an intellectual curiosity, like blanquism.
No way USA lasts more than a few decades more, about 50 years, let alone centuries
It might seem that way when you look at its poverty and increasing unrest, but its political institutions are very stable, its ruling classes are extremely well protected, its protest movements are extremely unorganized, its labor movement died by the 1970s and has been on life support ever since. I’ve lived in US cities of hundreds of thousands of people, and we can barely scrape together 5 dedicated communists, whereas police often outnumber protesters, and have stations built like fortresses.
Its the most anticommunist country on the planet, and people don’t know of alternatives to bourgeois “democracy”. Its people are so indoctrinated, that they even vote for candidates who are trying to kill them: nearly all of my boomer family members have major health problems, yet somehow think the US has “socialist medical care”, and that we need to get rid of it.
I’d wish the U.S. ended in 5 years, so I won’t hold my breath for the U.S. ending in 50 years, but I’d love to be wrong.
Anarchists can’t have a successful revolution because they can’t organize installing a light bulb, let alone organizing cross-industry production
What about Anarcho-Syndicalists? That structure is a sort of decentralized command economy, instead of the description given in that link of a “network of free contracts”.
There has never been a successful ansyn revolution or economy, because a “decentralized command economy” doesn’t make any sense, and is no different from “freedom to refuse” in practice. Read the above article.
Lets say a war effort needs x amount of steel refined from a certain region, so that another region can produce tanks. A “decentralized” system gives each region the autonomy to refuse meeting quotas or collaborating, and the whole thing falls apart.
(This is pretty unorganized and will need much editing, but its basic kernels of my analysis of the potential of the US. It doesn’t really answer OP’s question of ideological revolution, but i am placing it here as people are discussing the feasibility of a US revolution)
Unlike others I don’t believe the US will be the last place to have a revolution. I would instead say it will be the place with the sharpest class struggle.
Why do I say this? When I think of de-radicalized populations I think of the Nordic Countries; They have wide social safety nets, benefit from imperialism with little guilt,–As they are “peace loving” countries who “disagree” with the US, but will never take any action.–and have defanged and normalized “Socialism”. In the ole US of A; Social safety nets are little to none, we know full and well where our tax dollars go to, and we have only recently opened our eyes to what Socialism is and what it could be. These get more and more apparent with the younger generations, who by the way, will be the ones carrying out the revolution. It’s easy to look at boomers or Gen Xers and think the population is too scared to approach socialism with an open mind, but the youth poll high for socialism. Granted they don’t know exactly what socialism is, but that is great for us. They know capitalism is bad, and they also know about the Red Scare and will distrust what the US says about socialism (if we can help them walk through the logic it’s pretty easy to get the youth to even sympathize with the soviet union!)
In the States, sure you can find the de-radicalized labor aristocratic and typically white “middle class”, but you can also find some of the most exploited or demonized members of society; Whether is it is the Indigenous Americans, Black population, Undocumented Immigrants, Immigrants in general, and the Queer community but especially Trans. I would also add the Asian American community who typically have higher incomes, will experience more and more hate as the West loses its influence to the East. Especially Chinese, we have seen what anti asian hate crimes look like at beginning of the Pandemic, and that is without the West even acknowledging the total rise of China! Women with their dwindling rights will become more and more radicalized as the Dems have gone mask off. While Neurodivergence has been heavily normalized with the internet and now TikTok, we still face hardships of the cut throat capitalist system with not being the “ideal workers”–not to mention our thought processes leading us to class consciousness.
While many of these groups may overlap, there is still a nice chunk of the population we know will have radical tendencies–and this is even without mentioning the poor white cis het men!
There are a lot of material factors that agitate the US population, what is needed is the ideological base to guide them. There won’t be a revolution soon, but what there needs to be is a massive ML foundation laid out during these times of upheaval. While we give libs a lot of shit, most Americans aren’t bigots. If you are worried about hardline Trumpists, they are a minority, a loud minority, but also a minority that is great at alienating the majority of the population. As the country moves farther right, people will look for those voices who stand adamantly against them, and that is us.
If you are considering the actual actions of the revolution here are things to think about: Gun culture has made arming ones self a pretty simple venture. The country itself (I would also add on Canada as it will fall along with the US) is huge with inefficient communication systems and geographic features such as the Rockies, Appalachia, Sierra Nevada as mountain ranges, the deserts sprawling the Southwest, and hell the Mississippi and its extensions splitting open the States, not to mention Canada and Alaska’s frozen mountainous terrain and the former’s swaths of taiga and tundra, make mass scale deployment of an organized army difficult. That is if the army even wants to fight its own people. The Pentagon has said something as a sliver of concessions like Free College would drastically lower recruitment, so imagine what a worker’s revolution would do! Plus marginalized communities are disproportionately in the military, and I would imagine they would heavily sympathize with an ML revolution, especially with the case of New Afrika!
I will leave it here for now, feel free to challenge me or ask my further thoughts. Keep in mind these are just seeds of a further analysis, I just needed to dig them up and plant them somewhere.
I actually completely agree with you, I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I don’t believe we’re on the precipice of a revolution or anything but given the right material circumstances, good organizing and mobilizing of the people, and a little luck, anything could happen in a few years time.
The contradictions are sharpening faster than ever before and they are a weapon that, if wielded properly, can deliver the blow to the US that the world needs.
If you would have told Lenin in 1914 that in just 3 short years a revolution was accomplished, he would have laughed in your face. I am not calling for head in the clouds idealism, or that America is going to collapse next month or something like that. My point is that it will take work and time, that revolution does not occur spontaneously, and that if we do this correctly I genuinely believe the US doesn’t have to be the last to fall.
Some factors that contribute to the success of a revolution.
Factor US situation An organized proletariat The US labor movement died by the 1970s, strikes per year used to be hundreds, since the 90s its less than 10. I’ve organized in many US cities, some with hundreds of thousands of people, and we can’t scrape together a handful of dedicated communists. a proletariat / peasantry that can bring the economy to its knees the US largely exported all production to the global south by the end of the 90s, it no longer has that ability. Service and transport workers can strike, but since they are not the source of capitalist surplus (commodity-producing global south proletarians are), their refusal to work isn’t a big deal. Also the US cultivates enough unemployment to have a large army of reserve labor to create strike-breakers from. Openness to communist / anti-imperialist ideas its the most pro-imperialist, anti-communist country on earth. Indoctrinated from cradle to grave, and reinforced continuously in all its media. Talk to any young bernie/aoc “socialist”, and they think socialism is just healthcare with no work, supported by other countries surplus. a disorganized / unstable capitalist class the most stable, well organized capitalist class on earth unstable political institutions Its bourgeois-democracy is the most stable on earth, even with most of its population disinterested in politics, and elections being a theatre. The energy of its political active ppl are sucked into dead ends of participation in this reality-tv show very effectively. An unprotected capitalist class the strongest military and police on earth, with many cities having more cops than there are protesters A disillusioned army nope, the US pays its soldiers well and keeps the upper ranks very happy. civil war not going to happen because of its strong military that would squash any secession attempt immediately. Am I missing anything?
So what do you think we should do then? Are there any steps to at least get a foothold in the class struggle? You mention all these problems, but what are the solutions? Are we just at a point where our first steps are to explain and organize? Or just wallow in defeat?
Theres a rise in the Labour Movement, hell the Guardian has stated it here, that there is the largest support of Unions since 1965. And the strike numbers keep going up. The ruling class haven’t made concessions yet as the movement isn’t strong enough (as of now and which we can change!), plus as the US loses its hegemony on the periphery the bourgeoisie will have to sacrifice more for each sliver of concession!
The point on not being able to cripple the economy makes a lot of sense. But again what will happen as the US loses its grip? Wouldn’t the peripheries shift to anti-imperialism effectively work as a cripple to the economy? And as I am getting more educated on the Labour aristocracy i will know more in depth, truly there will be material conditions to swing fully into imperialist talking points. BUT, that is happening anyway so it’s more feasible to educate the populace and radicalize them as the conditions worsen BEFORE they turn to the right wing. I toe the Panther line when it comes to the unemployed, as they can be the most radical champions of the working class!
You say the US is the most pro-imperialist and anti-communist country on Earth. That may very well be true, but let’s dig into the average American thought process. Americans know for a fact that their country has its own interests against the world. Americans also sympathize with communism, problem is they think it only works in theory. They unknowingly support Imperialism when they see “Evil Putin is invading the innocent Ukraine and Xinnie the Pooh with freedom loving Taiwan!” not because they want to have a total US hegemony but because they see them as imperialists themselves. Surprise, surprise, people don’t like wars. While i will admit the escalation in Ukraine is a huge set back for anti-imperialist education, we can use the differing narratives that have been provided by the US over and over again to snap them into class conscious. It would be best with China, as it is an AES state instead of Russia which even takes some leftists convincing to critically support. I believe the socdem youth are ripe for radicalization, after all it will be them and their children to further propagate the truth and organize. While it may seem effective to convince Gen Xers, as they are the ones mainly run things right now, spreading an ideological base within the youth, who are growing up in the time of the fall of US hegemony and the internet, is the most productive use of our efforts.
What will happen with their organized class when the exploitable resources in their hands slip through their fingers? At the moment, They are too organized for a revolution to be successful, but wouldn’t they start dividing up the remaining resources at best, and at worst be waged into a full civil war against each other?
The bourgeois democracy is stable, but again only as long as the relations of Imperialism exist to supplement them. You mention that the most politically active people are drained by the theatre of the shit show. So we know these specific people are the type who keep up to date on things and at least try, in their own ways, to be politically educated? Can we not show these people the stability of and Dialectical Materialist outlook? I remember when I was a “lib”–I was pretty disillusioned even then–there were some traces of political thought that made sense. A centralized government that provides for you, to have the ability to reap what you sow in your work, and to have women’s full sexual autonomy. Problem was these were all spread out over the “sides” of the aisle. Bernie advocated for the first, but conservatives had pushed the bootstrap mentality, and then the libertarians and liberals advocated the last. But almost all of them advocated for small business owners. Why? It is a way for us to sympathize with our semi proletarian brethren, without endangering the structure of Capital. “Small business owners” was our short breath of class consciousness. Being able to reap what you sow from your own work, while not being crushed down by the big capitalist. It was idealistic, but showing people that they CAN have a better life with out exploiting others made the working class feel content. Now when we open these politically active libs to a world outside Capital, they will start to realize what interests they really have and not limiting themselves to the allusive mystery of “small business owners”.
Also I wouldn’t say the US has the strongest military on Earth. The most funded one sure, but most of that is kick backs to the MIC. The weapons are known to break, the MIC has a trend of making them “customizable”. Most of it goes into its Navy and the Airforce, which can’t hold a lot of ground, but is suited for its imperialist ventures. Also Nato’s stockpiles are being drained out right now. Now the domestic police are different situation, they are very much a threat. But their crackdowns and abuses will just have sharpened the contradiction. We saw even with Liberal co opting, what massive uproar the Murder of George Floyd caused. And what did the Biden administration do in response to the masses? They increased the Police Budget! This will only further exacerbate the struggle with the Police, and more faith lost in the dems! Organizing in a police state seems impossible, but yet don’t we see the massive mobilizations of Palestinians in their struggle against the Israeli state? Communists have always been persecuted, but that just adds to our own struggle!
Your average military members actually don’t get paid a lot, they have many concessions but even then that’s a carrot on a stick. Its common to hear grunts speak of “You only join the military if you are dumb or if you are poor”. Sure the highest members receive great sums of money, but you can’t lead soldiers, who joined for the concessions, to fire on people who are fighting to improve the conditions which led them to join in the first place. Not to mention oppressed minorities are overrepresented in the military
This ties in nicely with a secession movement. We know one of the most radical regions in the US is New Afrika. I would imagine many of the soldiers will defect to the side which represents them. Plus many of the training establishment lies in its regions so if the cards are played right, they could hinder mobilization possibilities.
Now I doubt a revolution will happen anytime soon, could possibly be multiple decades. But what I want to instill is revolutionary optimism. Sure I am young and I am naive, but if we don’t act like it’s possible then it will never happen. Id say Morale is the greatest factor for us in the States. Our conditions will continue to worsen, that will make the populous revert to mask off imperialist war mongering. You are right, us comrades in the States are drastically outnumbered, and are painted as crazy lunatics who bash their head into a wall over and over again, thinking that will fix all the world’s problems. But we must hold our heads high and proclaim our communist beliefs to the masses. Yes, at first they will take everything you say as a grain of salt. Yes, they will start repeating debunked propaganda. Yes, we will be putting a target on our backs. But isn’t that what we signed up for when we called ourselves Communists? Our talking points will be put into the attic of their brains, collecting dust. But when that moment happens–and I know you know the moment as we all have experienced it as MLs–when every little sense of liberalism is put under inspection, and all the theory taught to you through other Communists struggle is squashing that liberalism out of frame; Your brain just clicks. One day those liberals who denied your input to be nothing of value, will come back to you asking to lead them along the path of revolution. After all we have to challenge their world view, how can they learn if they are unaware of the possibilities?
Now what if we benefit from imperialism too much to be radical? Even if thats the case it’s not an end all be all. Was Engels unable to be radical from his class interests? What about Zhou Enlai. Hell what about you and I? We have happened to be radicalized in the most anti-communist State in history. Are we special? I don’t know about you, but I am not. No but think about it; We are radicals in the place where your material analysis says it should be near impossible. I find that… hopeful. Even in the strongest most allusive bourgeois state, class consciousness seeps through. It is beautiful, hope. One thing stronger than fear.
TLDR: Revolutionary Optimism, lol
No but Muad, I respect you comparatively older comrades who have paved the way for the younger people like me. Thank you, sincerely. I would still be a Western Leftist or god forbid a lib if it wasn’t for Lemmygrad. :)
I greatly appreciate your revolutionary optimism comrade. My opinion on the unlikelihood of communism coming about in western courtiens comes from organizing for several years in the US, but I still do it and feel that even if it’s hopeless, we should still do it, in the spirit of Huey P Newton’s Revolutionary suicide. We also have to be real tho, the BPP were the last genuine attempt that had any traction, and we saw how quickly it was crushed, and how quickly other movements in western countries get strangled in the cradle. Many a US comrade has been killed, imprisoned, or died destitute, in their false hope of a revolution happening there. The only ones that survived, like Assata, or Bill Haywood, did so because they escaped / sought asylum elsewhere.
It may surprise you to know that I share your revolutionary optimism… just not with respect to the US or the imperialist countries. Just as capitalism had many “false starts” transitioning out of feudalism, so has communism. But the arc of history inevitably will turn towards communism. These transitions are not speedy, as Stalin said:
It scarcely needs proof that there is not the slightest possibility of carrying out these tasks in a short period, of accomplishing all this in a few years. Therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transition from capitalism to communism, must not be regarded as a fleeting period of “super-revolutionary” acts and decrees, but as an entire historical era, replete with civil wars and external conflicts, with persistent organisational work and economic construction, with advances and retreats, victories and defeats. The historical era is needed not only to create the economic and cultural prerequisites for the complete victory of socialism, but also to enable the proletariat, firstly, to educate itself and become steeled as a force capable of governing the country, and, secondly, to re-educate and remould the petty-bourgeois strata along such lines as will assure the organisation of socialist production.
Communism will win globally, and it pretty much has already surpassed the US. The western star is waning, and the red star is on the rise politically and economically, in China, Vietnam, SE Asia, latin america, and Africa.
Can we not show these people the stability of and Dialectical Materialist outlook?
Even if the masses of the people were to suddenly ideologically believe in communism, it really doesn’t make a difference, because they have no economic power (since the export of production by the late 1990s). Western populations are only useful as consumers, not producers, and US capitalists have other markets to sell to. US citizens are now a mostly unnecessary class, a surplus population, more of a hindrance than anything, which is why you see them trying to kill us off as fast as possible with the lax COVID policy. No amount of dinner-table conversations are going to suddenly make us economically powerful.
They don’t need our expertise or talents, so fuck’em I say. We should give our talents and energies to communist or global-south countries, who are in need of technical expertise, communist literacy, union-organizing, and labor-power. Western countries are a sinking ship, and its up to us to get on lifeboats and leave while there’s still time. The imperialist countries are eating themselves, and will inevitably depopulate like all empires do anyway (The city of Rome went to 5% of its peak population within like 200 years).
I respect your points, comrade. Like having doubts about any traction inside the core from your own experience; and especially with wanting to move to communist and global south countries where we see physical progress, and of course to escape persecution from with the core.
But for me personally, It feels… wrong to uproot and leave, even if to stay it were in vain. I don’t think it necessarily is. I think there needs to be a remnant of the radical left–underground in the worst case–to put up at least some sort of internal struggle in different scenarios that would occur with the Red Star taking over: A. to severely protest any efforts by the state to drag us into a humanity ending war. B. To possibly take over any industry that would be placed back in the core if they couldn’t exploit the periphery anymore. C. To protect innocents from any rabid fascist dogs being let loose. And D. of course passing on Communism within the core. Somebody will have to stay in the States. There will always have to be a struggle. Sure the need for life boats will come at some point. But feels wrong for me as a communist to get on those life boats before anyone else. Hell, if instead of me being the vanguard of some revolutionary movement maybe instead my job was to usher as many people to get to safety. Not to mention i don’t have the means to leave if i wanted to.
Still tho, i am comfortable with sacrificing my own life. I believe all comrades worth their shit are. Not mention the reason why the Panthers were crushed were because they posed a threat, a real threat of revolution, not because it was false hope. And I would be honored to go out in the same way, if that what it took.
I don’t have much else to say that I didn’t already, at least not much coming to mind. This thread seems to have come to its natural conclusion, and yes a question of revolution in the US will come up again, as it always does. As I said, if you feel it is best to leave for the AES states and Global South, i respect you. I whether of choice or circumstance will stay here, and will fight for revolution till the bitter end.
Take care, Muad.
Average high grade thread on Lemmygrad, saving with SingleFile.
I would question the implicit assumption you are making here that there will be such a thing as “the revolution” (singular) in the US. The US is likely to be among the last places in the world to have revolutions and these will follow the long decline and demise of the US empire and the ensuing economic collapse that will be caused by the loss of US hegemony and neo-colonial extraction even as it tries to cling to its hegemony by wasting what little economic base it has left on militarism.
Because of this it is much more likely that we will first see civil conflict followed by a fracturing of the US as it exists today into multiple different entities, some fully others semi-autonomous and with different regional cultures determining what kind of system they will replace the current one with. Some may experiment with anarchism, indigenous communities and other threatened minorities will band together for defense and develop local experiments similar to the Zapatistas, others will go full fascist attempting to return to a mythologized past (and in this pursuit will launch wars on other political entities on the continent), others still will try to cling to some form of stunted liberal democracy as long as the declining material conditions allow (most likely the coastal regions which will be able to trade with the rest of the world). Ultimately through much trial and error they will all arrive at the inevitable conclusion that it’s either socialism or barbarism - it only remains to be seen how much barbarism will take place and for how long before they do.
I think your analysis is pretty accurate, though I am slightly more skeptical of the U.S. splitting into various regions as hard or as fast as you say. Its definitely possible, but I think the sheer scale of the U.S. war machine and oppressive imperialist apparatus will make this process more difficult, so that it might actually need a single revolution. But I’m not dying on this wager.
