The Deadly Virus of Ultra Leftism in the Belly of the Beast.

   Something that is consistent in Mao's writings and speeches is the need to combat ultra left thinking and actions. He describes one aspect of "ultra leftism" as the refusal to work or unite with other groups or individuals that could be united with. He explains that these people split over the most miniscule and petty reasons.


   A communist number one goal is and should always be the victory of the broad working masses. Socialism over capitalism, self-determination and independence over imperialism. An ultra leftist would compromise this goal by refusing to work with other progressive elements on basis of "principle" or sometimes just plain arrogance.


   We in the USA, the largest imperialist nation on earth, a first world nation, have the luxury of ultra leftism. Ultra leftism is (in the USA) a luxury for communist in first world and imperialist nations. We can afford to keep to our small ineffectual, intellectual circles that only allow in a certain ideology and refuses to work with other groups who don't believe the exact same thing that we do. Why should we prepare for revolution when we can stay busy arguing with other people that we could be uniting with to create a revolutionary situation? 


   I don't believe I need to continue to rant on this overall situation because any communist reading this is already aware that ultra leftism, or; the inability to work well with others. Is holding us back and makes it impossible to create the correct situation for revolution. I'm not calling for communist to unite with everyone. That is ultra right-wing communism to go about uniting with others for opportunistic or utopian reasons.


   In a nation where there are sooooo many different groups and a lot of different ideologies are represented it is important to know who you can unite with for revolution and those that you can not. Our goal is proletarian revolution! The democratic dictatorship of the broad working classes over the bourgeoisie and imperialist forces. We can not and will never achieve our goals under the current situation of ultra leftism on one side of the communist movement and ultra rightism on the other.

                             ULTRA LEFTISM IN THE MAOIST MOVEMENT

   We Maoist are ourselves guilty of ultra leftism to the highest degree. We split ourselves over everything from the GLF to the 100 flower movement to the GPCR. We split from those who see the USSR as social imperialist and those who don't. We split from those who support the shinning path and those who don't. We split over which line we support in the Nepal revolution. We would split over anything it seems. We have no functional party to work in as a unit. We are fractured, sectarian and ineffectual. Of course I do not mean all Maoist living in the US, some Maoist here are shinning examples of how to be a good communist. But for the most part we are ultra leftist talking revolution but not willing to step outside our circles and comfort zone to actually achieve a revolutionary situation.


   I myself am guilty of ultra leftism earlier in my political life. I used to never want to work with anyone who wasn't a marxist leninist. But we must see and draw on past lessons. (as maoist) It is important to work with all who can be united with. What is better? One large, unified, comprehensive communist/progressive movement based in and on the broad working masses? Or a small, fractured, schizophrenic movement based on intellectual circles and protest activist?  The answer is easy and was handed to us long ago by Mao himself. The real question is what are we going to do about it?
 


    

Oppose Leftist Thought, Combat Rightist Thinking!

Chairman Mao and his close followers always stressed a certain point when it came to uniting all the forces than can be united to fight your enemy. They constantly wrote and spoke of the need to resist both leftist and rightist tendencies when it came to figuring who can be united with and who can not be.


To be a leftist in this sense meant to isolate yourself from potential ally's. To not unite with someone because they were not as radical as you or because they were not willing to push the issues to the same extreme that you were willing to. To look at a moderate communist and call him reactionary and struggle against him because he is not as radical as you is another example of this leftist thinking.


I have been guilty of leftist thinking and actions before and it is something I constantly self-criticize and try to improve about myself.


To relate it to today; many groups will not unite over what is in the objective realm of the real world meaningless line issues. I personally have been attacked as a reactionary imperialist supporter by MList simply because I view the USSR after a certain point as imperialist (I see no reason to call them social or red imperialist because imperialism is imperialism). Those individuals refuse to unite with me even though we agree on 80% of everything. This an example of leftist thinking and action.


Leftist thinking is hurtful to our goals as communist (as is rightist but I'll get to that). It stops us from uniting with the other progressive forces to fight whatever is being fought at that time. It isolates us to the extent that our voice is irrelevant and too small to make a noise. It also isolates us to the viewing public and the masses as a whole. How can we be taken seriously by the masses if they see us willing to split with fellow communist over the most trivial things?


To be a rightist in this sense is to unite with forces that should not be united with. To be more blunt it is the idea that we should "unite with everyone" regardless of what is going on in the struggle at that time. An example of this is the communist parties who's members took part in the Obama election under the guise that "they were working with the masses and that is where the masses were". This is very dangerous because while the group maybe participating with masses of people they are pushing the masses towards a reactionary idea and mind set. It gives a communist a false sense of accomplishing something when really they will just be advancing a reactionary line.


But I must state that these leftist and rightist ideas must be decided and combated on an issue to issue basis. For example; uniting with liberals to advance propaganda for universal health care is okay and should be done. But to campaign with liberals for liberal candidates (no matter their party) is a rightist line and should be halted at all cost!


In short conclusion we should be uniting with all of those WHO CAN BE UNITED WITH. However, we should not be uniting with forces that should not be united with. Communist should be constantly reviewing their situations and doing what they can to further advance and advocate communist ideas. If who you are working with is compromising that goal you are probably using a rightist line. If you are not accomplishing anything because you are refusing to unite with other radicals then you are probably advocating a leftist line.


(I decided to leave names of ORGs out of this post because it is really up to the individuals of a party or organization to combat these two extremes and find the correct allies to unite with and I didn't want members of those ORGs to see their groups name and stop reading the article because they viewed it as critical. Which is something that the left seems allergic to doing or hearing about their groups.) 

The Reason Why Wisconsin Won't Lead to a Revolution.

People who are familiar with the left/socialist movement here in the United States know that every time a huge protest happens or a school building is occupied by students that the left will start screaming "the revolution is coming" or "this could be the start of the revolution" and "see the people in the United States are class conscious/revolutionary."



The event we see happening in Wisconsin is very important to pay close attention to. What we see happening is a right wing tea party supported governor who is a champion of corporate American billionaires trying to attack the unions right to collectively bargain. The governor is doing this to gain more support from the upper capitalist class (millionaires and billionaires) for making it easier for corporations to make more profits by paying their employees shitty wages, and the employees not having the legal right to demand higher wages.



It should be noted that this is the second attack on public workers, all in the name of "needing to cut the budget." The first cuts that were proposed to public workers were actually agreed to by the public workers and their unions according to MSNBC tv(1). But these second cuts will do more than make collective bargaining illegal it will also force public workers to pay double for their health care and force the workers to contribute 5.8% of their checks to their pension(2).



It is very important to support the unions and their right to collectively bargain. Even though a lot of unions in the US are reactionary and often side with the bosses before they would call for a strike. They can in some instances be the last line of defense for workers rights. So this post should not be seen as a attempt to stand against the Wisconsin workers.



I do want to touch on the claim that somehow the protest in Wisconsin means workers "do understand politics and are the first to engage in mass political activity." And that somehow workers trying to keep their jobs in Wisconsin is a sign that workers are trying to rise up and defeat the ruling and other bourgeois classes. Many populist socialist have made bolder claims that somehow all people who go to work and get a wage for their labor are working class(3). So by that claim I guess people making 300,000 dollars a year and millionaire CEO's who get paid by the hour are working class as well.



The truth of the situation is that probably 70% or more of those protester are pro-capitalism and they are just trying to keep their jobs. They are not there to do anything other than fight for their right to a fair job. This situation does not mean workers in the US are revolutionary or class conscious and as the link above falsely claims that US workers make common cause with workers in other countries. I would tell readers to go read any Yahoo news article, youtube, etc etc go read the comments about videos/articles about other countries. These comments are left by average everyday Americans and you will see that 70-30% are reactionary, xenophobic, and racist and ignorant, these are the real average US citizens. The people in left circles are advanced and are indeed not most of those things, but to claim the majority of Americans are revolutionary and not backwards is to lie to the people you're talking to.



Every time some bit of disorder happens does not mean "the revolution is here!" Here is what will probably happen; one of two things will happen. The Governor will win and the unions will be busted and the workers will be pissed off but will go back home eventually and start looking for a new job so their family doesn't starve but no revolt will happen and people in other states won't stand up with the workers (after all they have jobs and families to feed). Or the unions will win and everyone will cheer than go home and celebrate. But neither will lead to a revolution or even a radicalization of workers in the US. I really wish it wasn't true and I wish this would spark the prairie fire but it just won't happen brothers and sisters the conditions just aren't right at the moment.



If every time the left claimed revolution was about to happen then we would have around 3-6 revolutions every year. But what is most important is that we support the union in their struggle and encourage them to call for a general strike as the WIL (Workers International League) and the SA (Socialist Alternative) have advocated for. The people and the people alone will be the driving force.


Support a general strike in Wisconsin and Ohio!

The Point of Polemics.

A polemic is a critique of a organization, groups, person, idea, tendency etc. It was brought to my attention lately by a leftist pal of mine that I am not a good communist because I don't help the local reformist and liberal class collaborators who pose as communist (not his words, but mine). I didn't think much of it at first because he is a "do something, anything-ist" but I think that he had a point in there somewhere. That even by not supporting a reformist party I am doing nothing because I don't participate in many local activities. While I do participate in some local activities, I try to keep to little circles who I think have potential or to participate in militant activities. I am not interested in how many news papers I can sell at a rally, but rather I am interested in meeting people and hearing of their thoughts and experiences. And through discussion trying to reshape their ideas to be more communist and create more awareness among the people, person by person.



While I must confess that to some leftist this does not fall into their category of "doing something" but I have had great success with this strategy. It is also more inspiring and energizing for me to do this than to go to a leftist event and hearing liberal and reactionary ideas being regurgitated as fast as they can be re-consumed by the ORGs followers.



It is no secret that others in my area read this blog. The reason why I write polemics about these groups and people (most polemics I write are about multiple ORGS and many of them are taken out of context) is because they have many incorrect theories, they are calling themselves revolutionaries while championing reformism and liberalism under the guise of workers power. They are using other leftist to further their goals and have personally told me that there will come a day when they have to turn their backs on the other groups (that's called opportunism). I write polemics because many groups have become theoretically ignorant and use dogmatism as their guiding light.



Polemics are important in making groups and people better themselves. If you read a polemic about your group or about your ideas and you brush it off for any reason than you may be a dogmatic follower. If you discredit anything that was said or written by Mao simply because it was written or said by Mao than you are dogmatic and thus anti-dialects. Same goes for other people if you discredit everything Stalin said because it was Stalin who said it, if you discredit everything Trots say just because they are trots than you are a dogmatic person. This is not to say that you can't disagree with all of someones thoughts and ideas. But disagree because you've read it and don't just refute because of who wrote it. I don't agree with 99% of what Trotsky wrote. But it is because I think he wrote things from a purest and Utopian view point and not just because it was Trotsky who wrote it.



If polemics scare you as an ORG than you probably need to reevaluate yourself as an ORG. Only great people and groups use a good polemic to better themselves. Only cowards who are theoretically bankrupt and dogmatic cry when a polemic is written about them. A polemic is a good place to start doing some self criticism and theoretical advancement.



Written by; Dustin Slagle