Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.
Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.
Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.
For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.
Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.
While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:
By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.
One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):
In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.
By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
This is actually a good question. I don’t pretend to know all the answers here but I’ll try to give some of my thoughts here.
It lies in understanding that the US is the chief perpetrator of imperialism in the Middle East, and that its domestic left wing base (if there is one) holds the key towards revolutionary defeatism of the imperial power itself. External forces can only do so much to resist imperialism without an outright invasion of the imperial core - it is the internal force that can tilt the balance towards its defeat, and hence blunting if not ending its imperialist thrust against foreign colonies.
So, what is to be done?
First, theory development is essential. The problem I see with the Western left today is that there is a lack of theoretical advancements especially with the rapid changing nature of 21st century capitalism. Without a scientific understanding of capitalism, you cannot predict its trajectory, and without such ability you cannot plan for defeating capitalism - the knowledge of which could guide organization, strategic and tactical thinking. Without science, everything else is treating it as an alchemy - using pure luck or wishful thinking, if you will.
I cannot tell you about the unique context in America, but I can tell you about my country, the one I am most familiar with - China.
During the Long March, more than 95% of the Communist Party was effectively culled by the pursuing KMT forces. Its urban organizing force was practically neutralized. The remnants of the cadre fled to the rural Yan’an and established its holdout there.
Mao became the leader of the party during these events and was obsessed with land reform. Unlike Tsarist Russia with a proletarian base, China at that time was still mostly populated by rural peasantry, whose labor continue to be tied to their land, which suppressed the revolutionary potential of the peasant base.
So how do you unleash the revolutionary potential of the rural peasantry? Through the application of Marxist-Leninist theories, Mao became convinced that the means to do so is to break the feudal relations that tied the peasantry to their land - that is, land reform.
Even at its weakest when the CPC numbered no more than a few thousands, Mao was already envisioning the eventual victory of the Chinese Communist movement, and set out a deliberate plan to achieve it.
Chiang Kai-shek was by no means a weak military strategist, and the KMT at the time had a force far larger than the communists. By these measures alone, the KMT should have decisively defeated the communists. Yet, it was Mao’s ideological vision that prevailed at the end. Chiang could not have foreseen that Mao’s land reform would unleash the tidal wave of revolutionary force of the rural peasantry in China (which defied the Soviet logic of a proletarian revolution!) which ultimately led to mass defection among the KMT ranks and the defeat of the KMT. This is how history works.
Second, actual strategic plans to advance the political goals of the movement.
As soon as Imperial Japan was defeated in 1945, Mao proclaimed a dramatic shift in the CPC strategy. The rural base had been mobilized, but it was still not enough. China’s domestic industries were far too weak to form a resilient industrial and military base that would allow the communists to fend off foreign imperialists and their compradors in China.
The Japanese heavy industries and the railroad infrastructure in the Northeast (Manchuria) were up for grabs as the Soviet withdrew from the region. A race had begun between the CPC and KMT as to whom will be first to capture the vast industrial resources in the Northeast.
Again, using Marxist-Leninist principles, Mao determined that capturing the Japanese industries in the Northeast is a necessity to the future of the movement. In fact, he even went as far as proclaiming that he “is willing to give up its ENTIRE base in the rest of China if it means they can capture the Northeast. If we can get to the Northeast, the Revolution will survive. If not, then the Revolution is doomed.”
The lesson here is that changing circumstances create new opportunities. And without theories and strategies, you will miss that opportunity 100% of the time. As US imperialism is being resisted by the Global South, new opportunities will arise. However, it requires an organized movement well versed in the Marxist-Leninist theories to be able to envision, predict, strategize and ultimately execute its plans when such opportunity eventually arises.
There are many things the US leftists can do. Whatever it requires will unique to the circumstances and contexts of the US political and socioeconomic conditions today, and the answers can only be found by the US left itself.
Compared to the sufferings of the Chinese communists during the Long March, whatever hardships the US left is suffering today literally amounts to nothing. No offense, but that is true (I encourage you to read up on the Long March). And yet, a movement that has a deep desire to transform its country, to bring about a socialist future, will always find a way.
All of that is true - why do you assume no one is implementing that knowledge? Do you think the communist parties planning marches these marches don't have a strategy? That they believe a protest in the street is sufficient?
I'm in
and we constantly apply the lessons of successful (and unsuccessful!) communist movements from around the world, China probably more than any other. We are engaged in a constant process of planning, analysis, strategy, implementation, review, repeat. We require members to engage in a year-long candidacy that involves study of exactly the subjects you discuss.
No investigation, no right to speak - in what way have you actually investigated the strategy of the American left? You can say "no offense" but your initial comment was obviously intended to offend and it did. I and my comrades have been busting our asses struggling on this and many other issues day in and day out. You have determined, clearly without looking into it, that this was all just a ritual to assuage our guilt with no hope of victory. It's a shitty thing to say about communists struggling in conditions you admit you don't understand.
The left in the US was violently destroyed. The state assassinated its leaders and threw the masses of the key revolutionary class - the black proletariat - into racialized concentration camps masquerading as criminal justice. We have to rebuild from essentially nothing, and that requires a long term plan and vision. It requires understanding and correcting the failures of our predecessors that allowed them to be defeated by the state. We are building and implementing that vision every single day. I'm sorry we haven't won yet - in your eyes that apparently disqualifies us as even trying.
Speaking in terms of PSL for theory: Liberation News is our newspaper which includes political analysis, Liberation School is short-form theory, and 1804 Books is the party-adjacent publisher where long-form theory and historical analysis is published. We have an internal-only party publication focused on specific tactical analysis and sharing party experiences for development, but obviously I can't share that.
The fundamental strategy at the moment is party building and developing a socialist consciousness. We apply the ML line that the vanguard party is the most historically tested vehicle for people's revolution, and so we need to build institutional legitimacy and capacity by contributing meaningfully to ongoing struggles. Our Palestine work is only partially about the street protests. We also do BDS campaigns, have party cadre in important union positions pushing labor action for Palestine with some success (for security reasons and the way US anti-communist law works, I can't be specific), and have run a huge array of fundraising, educational, solidarity building (eg Chinese, Black, and Puerto Rican solidarity with Palestine) projects, etc. The centralized and disciplined organization of PSL and our partner orgs (especially PYM) are the primary reason this movement has lasted so much longer than your average American protest movement - our continuous task is to move from the moderately disruptive and chaotic street protest that defines the American left of the last 20 years into a disciplined, revolutionary, and strategically centralized communist movement. A huge amount of that work is base building and community support in poor, racialized, and internally colonized communities.
I know all that, I have lived in the US before (just for a few years though) and I am familiar with PSL. I am asking the more fundamental questions here:
I still don’t see the major questions answered:
Thanks in advance.
The principal contradiction is imperialism. Our goal, struggling in the heart of empire, is to do whatever is within our capacity to weaken the ability of the empire to operate. Internally, though, our essential path is through the internally colonized Black nation in the US. We are (among other things) a Black Nationalist party, and building the capacity for national self-determination among Black Americans would cripple the operation of the capitalist system, which relies on a hyper-exploited Black proletariat. We do the same or similar work among other colonized nations - Puerto Rico is a big focus of my branch's local work, for example. Other branches focus heavily on immigrant populations, rural areas, Native nations, etc, as is appropriate for their context. Radicalizing the labor movement is another medium-term objective. The step of actually taking power is through a revolutionary upheaval that dismantles the current state and builds a new one. Everything is about building capacity to actually do that revolution. It's not an apple, etc etc.
Discussing this on an open forum is a security issue. It is something I'm willing to elaborate on in the right context, but I'm not going to expose our position here. I hope you understand.
We understand that our role is as one secondary front in the struggle against the genocide. The primary front is in and around Palestine. Our front's essential responsibility is to stoke and develop anti-imperialist, revolutionary defeatist consciousness and organization to exacerbate the political crisis in the US. That crisis is partially among the ruling class, but it also significantly among the working class - the US is exposing itself to its citizens in a way it hasn't in a long time, and faith in the system is crumbling.
We can do so by leveraging the power of labor unions to disrupt supply chains and reduce capitalist profits, as well as creating self-organizing and sufficiency capacity in working class and racialized communities. We're also working to move people's base disgust with Israel into a developed anti-imperialist position that connects the Palestinian struggle to imperial disruption in Venezuela, China (Taiwan), etc. This is a period of mass openness to radicalization, and we are aggressively capitalizing on that.
Thank you for the answers, really appreciate it.
Let’s discuss further.
I agree with you that the black and disenfranchised minorities really do hold the most revolutionary potential in present day America. However, the relationship to capital is currently that most working class people, and disproportionately black and Hispanic communities, are overburdened by debt under neoliberal finance capitalism, which fundamentally restricts their potential to be mobilized as a revolutionary class.
Like the serfs under feudalism, Marx’s greatest insight into class struggle is the fact that the transformation taking place under industrial capitalism freed the waged labor from the land, and enabling them to be mobilized as a revolutionary proletarian class.
In order to transform the disenfranchised working class communities in America today, your first immediate aim should be to destroy the relation of debt bondage tied to finance capital. What are the concrete mechanisms to achieve this?
How can self-determination of the oppressed groups be achieved when they are divorced from healthcare and public and social services? Are there plans to build a parallel economy within the United States? Or do you intend to seize the means of production? These are serious questions that need to be answered if you want to put forth a serious political program towards taking power.
I’m not trying to be facetious here, but there is nothing to discuss here because there is NO militant wing of the PSL, or any major socialist movements in America for that matter. We can talk about security personnel but there is no serious plans or attempts for an armed struggle, so we can dispense with that.
I agree with the notion that the faith in the system is crumbling. Stoking revolutionary socialist ideas is important in this regard.
However, through the application of Marxist-Leninist principles - how do you predict the American political and socioeconomic situations to be in, say 5 years from now? Using Marxist-Leninist principles, to emphasize.
Once that has been identified, what are the mechanisms to mobilize the disillusioned and disenfrachised masses into advancing the political goals of the party? In other words, using the knowledge of historical and dialectical materialism, how should an American left wing movement position itself such that 5-10 years from now it is in the position to take power?
I am not talking about rhetoric - I am talking about actual strategies that advance the political aims of the movement. Whether you plan to leverage on urban warfare and take over the key infrastructures (Trotsky’s strategy), or through rural bases surrounding the cities (Mao’s strategy), or something else entirely unique to the context of the America, are the key questions about strategy that need to be answered. Without a strategy, there is no movement.
These are all important questions and I never got a satisfactory answers out of that.
Yes please share your plans for armed struggle
Comrade, I don't think anyone disagrees that the US is a very long way off from a revolution. It's uncharitable to say that no real organizing is being done because the American left is too small and weak to bring about the end to the genocide in the timeframe that we want.
You’re being too generous, to be honest.
You can’t even share your plans for armed struggle (on Hexbear of all places) because there are NO plans for armed struggle among the American left. There is NO militant wing in any “serious” left wing party in America.
You do have a valid point, but the conclusion that follows this argument is that the American left is already doing all they can to stop the US from supporting genocide. If this is the case, then it’s not uncharitable to say that the American left really does not have a real organization if that is all they are capable of doing.
I’m not in the inner circles of my org nor am I experienced in political leadership and planning, but I have been involved with planning and participating in some if their events.
Look, I’m not expecting decades to happen every time in the streets. But my god man. There is only so much marching and chanting and awkward speeches interrupted and drowned out by fascists that I can endure. Yeah boohoo I have to stand in the sun while people are bombed - but then what? I don’t even speak out against the concessions they’ve accepted because I wasn’t there when they got them so who am I to speak? Yet, these concessions only benefit the oppressors because we don’t have any leverage. And I’m supposed to sit there and be happy with the results. A lot of them worked hard and ideologically aligned with actual anti imperialism, but it seems that their primary goal is to build a base in order to exhaust with liberal civility politics so they’ll be aligned with us when shit kicks off. But surely you can see why I’m jaded as someone who is already aligned and see nothing moving, at least from the ground.
I'm of the opposite opinion. I think praxis needs to come first before theory. The Bolsheviks had thinkers like Lenin, but the Bolsheviks were standing on the shoulders of past praxis of the Narodniks and other groups. The fact that the praxis of the Narodniks turned out to be a failure doesn't mean that their failure didn't contribute to the success of the Bolsheviks. In other words, Aleksandr Ulyanov had to fail so Vladimir Ulyanov can succeed. Russian revolutionaries were assassinating tsars before they decided to take on the entire tsardom instead of just targeting one dude. Lenin wouldn't have as much material to work with if the Narodniks weren't around to demonstrate the dead end of adventurism.
Same thing with the Chinese Revolution. Mao only got to where he was because of the failures of the pre-Mao leadership. Everyone thought Mao was just some wannabe Liu Bang until the CPC was almost exterminated by the KMT. And the entire CPC was itself the product of the May 4th Movement. And it's doubtful the May 4th Movement would've happened under the Qing, whose overthrow was a political matter. Mao was able to successfully synergize Chinese and Western thought, but that was off the failures of past synergies, some that slanted too much on the Chinese side (Self-Strengthening Movement), some that slated too much on the Western side (Sun Yat-sen, pre-Mao CPC), and some that were just poor synergies (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom).
The aim of learning history, especially past failures and dead ends of other socialist experiments, is so we don't have to repeat the same mistakes others had made, but with a population as proudly anti-intellectual and as disrespectful of history as the US, the masses as a whole will have to painfully go through the same exact steps with the same exact predictable ends as past socialist experiments. From the perspective of someone who's vaguely knowledgeable of socialist theory and history, it will look like someone repeatedly stepping on unconcealed bear traps. It's like a child who refuses to believe sticking a metal fork into a wall outlet will cause an electric shock. At a certain point, you just have to let the child get shocked. The US population as a whole is that child.
The point was that many small motions were already going on even before Lenin and Mao came to prominence.
Can you really say that the landscape of left wing movement in the US has undergone revolutionary change since Bernie’s first presidential primary in 2015?
Yes there are more left wing politicians that have gotten into office, but what has the left achieved during the Covid pandemic starting in 2020?
The fact that there was literally nothing achieved in terms of universal healthcare when you have a great opportunity during a global pandemic was the main sign that told me how the left in the US has completely crumbled.
This is not even a joke: literally nothing was gained in terms of healthcare for the people since 2020. If anything, the bourgeoisie in America have consolidated more wealth than ever and made billions in record profit during the pandemic.
The left did not even put up a fight!
So then we’re back to the question of what is the strategy here? How are you going to mobilize a left wing movement in America to achieve your political aims?
I guess my point is that you're looking for a Lenin or Mao in the US when the US left hasn't even risen to the level of the Narodniks or the May 4th Movement yet. This goes back to my point of praxis being more important. No amount of book-reading would prepare a potential cadre to undergo a Long March, but a potential cadre that has been tested through suppression of the state and through facing and overcoming adversaries has cultivated enough qualities that they could.
Just look at this thread when Russia had the most minor of minor setbacks. Just doomerism everywhere. This is not the heart of a fighter, of someone who would refuse to give up. Yes, there's an analytical aspect to it in the sense of being able to accurately and rationally determine whether Russia is in trouble or not, but a lot of it boils down to how someone emotionally handles setbacks. In any fight, there will always be setbacks and if someone can't face and overcome those setbacks, then the fight is already lost. The Western left, despite making almost little progress, practically gave up when the Soviet Union collapsed. Compare that with countries like Cuba or the DPRK that had to go through terrible suffering but still hung on to the socialist path.
A lot of the reason why the Western left can't handle adversity is because they're pampered Westerners. The silver lining to this is that the Western populace as a whole can't handle adversity either. The terminally treat-brained Burgerlander can't even handle wearing a simple surgical mask because of Covid. Can you imagine them having to eat wartime rations or not being able to watch Netflix because of WWIII? I can't blame the Western left too much. If anything, their capacity to face adversities is higher relative to the general Western population all things considered.
Overall, I'm in the "things have to get worse for a chance of a Western left to emerge" camp. The Chinese path towards socialism only began in earnest after the collapse of the Qing. There would have been no Mao, no CPC, and no May 4th Movement if the Qing was still around. The equivalent of the Qing dynasty collapsing is the US federal government collapsing, which you yourself do not believe will happen anytime soon.
Yeah I don’t disagree what this at all. I was responding to the point that this is all the American left believe is their maximum capacity to stop a genocide from taking place.
Which brought me back to the point about Covid. If they cannot even put up a fight for healthcare in their own country, when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a global pandemic, how on earth do they think they have the capacity to resist against imperialism in foreign country?
KMT did land reform too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Taiwan
I am not a KMT supporter btw
1950s after they had fled to Taiwan. The KMT was far too entangled with the feudal landlord class in mainland China that land reform was practically impossible, which also determined their downfall. You cannot cheat historical materialism.
They did that after getting owned by the CPC. And most of the "land reform" has more to do with breaking the power of the benshengren comprador class who collaborated with the Japanese during WWII.