Communism
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I suppose what needs to be asked here is why does the coastal regions seem to have far more organised communists than the rural regions?
Would rural people appreciate or listen to communists that moved there just to try and agitate them toward communism?
What about what few comrades exist within these rural areas? How many of them have tried to organise rural folk but failed?
This position gets floated a lot in UK spaces as well, that comrades from London ought to be airdropped into the forgotten and left behind parts of Britain where community barely exists and there is no work whatsoever to do. There is a reason there are more communists in urban centres with more proletarian work available.
Most rural populations are either kulaks, sub-proletarian or commuters. I do think we are beyond the vast revolutionary potential in rural areas since farmhands dont really exist anymore (make an exception for the “cheap labor”-force from Eastern Europe). The rural areas of past were quite different, the communal sense is basically dead and people have emptied out.
I'd avoid using Kulaks because this term does not apply to the US current material conditions. But I agree with you, Mao's strategy of encircling urban areas from the countryside wouldn't work because nowadays the rural areas aren't as populous anymore. We'd hardly ever have a strong base there, even if we managed to convince a lot of rural workers to join the communist movement. So yeah, I don't think the strategy is applicable for the US or UK.
In Brazil, which is still an agrarian nation (and on most global South nations that depend on agriculture), this strategy could have benefits. But even in Brazil's case, focusing on the urban proletariat is still important.
I used kulaks more flippantly, it has more bite than owner of large scale industrial farms or Manager of a Cargill Inc plant. I agree with the rest of your analysis though.
I think you're under-counting migrant labor in rural areas - they might have some revolutionary potential.