"As revolutionaries, we don't have the right to say that we're tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We also know that when the people understand, they cannot but follow us. In any case, we, the people, have no enemies when it comes to peoples. Our only enemies are the imperialist regimes and organizations." Thomas Sankara, 1985
International Anti-Capitalist podcast run by an American, a Slav and an Arab.
Rules:
Resources:
This was originally posted in r/TankieTheDeprogram by firefighter 430 (not the same image though). On reddit the ACP (American Communist Party) is infiltrating subreddits, and tried to infiltrate the tankie one too. Be aware that the ACP is not marxist nor are they communist. Pls stay safe everyone on lemmygrad.
Thanks for the heads up. Can you please give us the skinny on ACP? Thanks in advance!
The American Communist Party (not to be confused with CPUSA) is a group of Statesian PatSocs, ie imperialist "socialists," more akin to the German Nazi Party than anything actually communist.
It will be hard to convince people to be wary of the ACP and other reactionary socialists like them if we call them imperialist when for the casual observer they appear to be very vocally anti-imperialist. They make it pretty clear that they side with most anti-imperialist struggles, from Gaza to Yemen, to Venezuela, Russia, China and the DPRK, and even Cuba.
That kind of unforced error gives them ammo to discredit us as attacking them dishonestly with easily debunked accusations, which in turn lets them win undecided baby leftists to their side since they will appear as the reasonable ones.
We need to be more sophisticated and more accurate in our analysis of groups like this. We need to actually point out the contradictions in their reactionary positions with the foundational principles of socialism rather than resort to clichés.
Comparisons with the Nazi party are also unwise at this point because, again, at least in rhetoric they are pretty anti-Nazi, at least in the context of the Soviet Union during WW2 and Russia's current war against Nazis in Ukraine. I think it's too far fetched of an accusation to make in the eyes of someone who is unsure who the "real communists" are and trying to decide whether to side with us or with them.
The Nazis were clearly anti-Marxist. They weren't claiming to be Marxist-Leninist. Their "socialism" was extremely superficial. They weren't quoting Marx and Lenin. They weren't pretending to be anti-imperialist. They were openly and aggressively imperialist. Even calling them Strasserites muddles the discussion because the Strasserites also didn't behave like this.
I think a more potent angle of attack is to point out how when supposed communists adopt socially reactionary positions this undermines the potential to form diverse coalitions with marginalized people, which in turn serves as a form of sabotage against the revolutionary movement. This is the behavior of Feds and wreckers.
While I do agree with you, it's important to understand that they aren't just socially reactionary, but in advocating for ultranationalism within imperialist countries, they are passively also supporting imperialism. There's a contradiction at play between their anti-imperialism and their ultranationalism, which was the point I tried to highlight.
Their sort of MAGA Communism is ultimately based on ideas like small business, petty bourgeois quasi-socialism, socially reactionary positions, and ultranationalism within the imperial core. They would be bad enough if their only flaw was being socially reactionary, but the fact that they uphold nationalism within the imperial core betrays their supposed anti-imperialism as well, not to mention the incorrect analysis leading to the petite bourgeois focus.
I do appreciate you holding me to a higher standard though, comrade, and I mean that genuinely.
its comments like these why I joined the grad. this the core of accepting and dealing out criticism to make each other advance both in understanding and as a person that gives me hope of a future that is actually conducive to human development for everyone.
thank you comrades. o7
Same. It's refreshing to be able to have this level of civil and intelligent conversations in an online space.
Yep! Grad is nice because there's a good understanding of correct criticism and a common grounding in Marxism-Leninism. It's an extremely chill space for me that I greatly appreciate for discussion.
Meanwhile on reddit: "100 gorbillion dead in Russia and 40 bazillion killed in the great leap forward."
Lemmy.world and the other liberal instances too.
We haven't defederated from them?
Grad doesn't defederate normally, but .world defederated from us. They can't see us but we can see them.
Another thing which i greatly appreciate about this place. I don't support defederation unless it is with an instance that is specifically dedicated to spamming our instance with bots. Otherwise i think the possibility for debate should remain open, so long as there is good moderation keeping everything civil and within reasonable bounds. It's too bad the lib instances are too afraid of being owned by our facts and logic that they just chicken out and defederate, lol.
Yep, Grad is one of the calmest instances I've seen. I spend a good deal of time on Lemmy.ml too, but I go there knowing it's not really going to be a relaxing time or with high quality discussion.
exactly. I do find that it would be great if more people could understand the need and purpose of all this faster but I also get that the material conditions arent right for that atm. i would be highly interested to see how the grad progressed in the past couple of years in terms of activity and users. that could tell us about how politics affects ML ideological accession.
I don't know that I would use the term "ultranationalism" because that term has a more specific meaning that is not just "strong patriotism", but yes, this is correct. That is exactly the problem with "patriotism" in the imperial core. This is what I also pointed out in my other comment:
It's not the patriotism itself, it's what you're patriotic for: a reactionary, imperialist, settler-colony that exists on stolen land.
Yes. This is, I think, the proper Marxist critique of their position that we should be focusing on (as well as their reactionary position on social issues and the national question) because it is a glaring contradiction with the Leninist ideas that they claim to support. Lenin was very explicit about pointing out how small-producer economic relations reinforce capitalism and lead to bourgeois thinking.
I believe we are broadly aligned then, just nuances in emphasis. Thanks for explaining your position, I agree.
Exactly, as soon as I read maga communists I remembered! Apparently we had the same assessment.
The ACP are basically a bunch of nazis pretending to be commies. Also according to Wikipedia they are founded by Jackson Hinkle... They spew some weird ass-shit. They describe themselves as socially conservative and that Marxism was historically conservative. They also describe themselves as "MAGA communists"
Anyways here is the wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Communist_Party_(2024)
Prole wiki: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/American_Communist_Party_(current)
this reads a little like the bsw in germany who split from the "left" party. i would love to have an in depth analysis of the bsw done by a seasoned ML. that would rock.
I mean I know what the BSW is. I am half german btw... But Imo the ACP doesn't have the same actual political engagement as the BSW has had. Though keep in mind that the BSW is still a relative weak party and only had its seats in the past government because they used to be part of "die linke". The ACP was purely created to disrupt especially on social media, people are also theorizing that they are feds, I think they only have one actual politician in government in Vermont.
I wouldn't call it an in depth Marxist analysis, but i wrote a few comments explaining my view of the BSW and its role in the present German political ecosystem here:
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7358785
The comparison with the ACP is not entirely wrong because they do share some of the same characteristics, but i think the similarities are also fairly superficial.
For one thing, BSW is an actual serious political party, and the ACP just isn't, they're more like an online fanclub.
Also, BSW doesn't pretend to be communist. They don't distort communism and lead new potential communists astray like the ACP. They are essentially just a socdem party.
They fill the niche that was left open when Die Linke decided to turn itself into almost a clone of the Greens. If you're interested here is my take on where Die Linke is currently at:
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7386374
I also don't think the BSW will have much success, for reasons i explained here:
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7386721
Brillant analysis! Thanks! :) always a pleasure reading your texts.
Oh those people. I do recall having heard of them now. Nat Cs.
Their party ideology is PatSoc.
They may not admit it but they act like NazBols all the time.