Effective anti-colonial struggle means aligning with the forces doing the most to combat empire—including Russia

In Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, the imperial powers have been confronted with the most irrecoverable losses they’ve ever encountered throughout the African continent. With the formal decolonization of Africa, the imperialists were able to set up a new mode of colonial exploitation via coercing the former colonies into complying with the whims of international capital; whereas with these new developments, such a backup plan isn’t feasible. A growing number of post-colonial countries are deciding to form relationships of solidarity with one another to ensure that the imperialists can no longer invade any one of them, and therefore no longer steal their resources. Ultimately, the outcome can only be that international capital is made no longer able to extract the labor of these countries either; as these disruptions weaken the global monopolies, while bringing closer a new wave of workers revolutions.

What are we in the core of imperialism to do with this news? More than celebrate, we need to learn a lesson from these victories for the anti-imperialist cause: that to be a viable, successful venture, anti-colonialism must be based within a practice that’s oriented around how to practically change the balance of power. Because this is the practice which has brought success to these African liberation movements.

It’s no coincidence that it’s these movements, whose members are so in favor of multipolarity that they’ve been flying the Russian flag, are at the moment the most dynamic and rapidly rising source of harm towards empire. These movements have been able to do this because they’ve been willing to operate in a way that’s practical; that takes advantage of the means which are most effective, and most available, at this stage in the struggle. If those means have been the existing military apparatuses within the neo-colonial states they inhabit; or have been an alliance with Russia which gives them the ability to fight off U.S.-created terrorists; then these revolutionaries have taken advantage of these opportunities. 

Only through this pragmatic mode of practice have they been able to use the wider opportunities which their present conditions have given them; opportunities wherein U.S. power has been declining, and the possibility has emerged for a new wave of revolutions. The strength of the African revolutionaries comes not, in itself, from their action of displaying the Russian flag, but rather from the underlying ideas they have which drive them to display the flag. They’re pro-Russian and pro-multipolar for the same reason they’re practical in their strategies for taking power: because their thinking is based in a materialist understanding of how progress happens. When a revolutionary formation shows support for multipolarity, which at the moment is best indicated by support for Russia, this is a sign that this formation knows how to correctly navigate its local conditions.

Should a movement that seeks liberation from colonialism not learn from these victories of the African revolutionaries, and instead adopt an ultra-left, idealist practice, it won’t win. It will unwittingly prolong the same colonial power structure it wants to defeat, diverting revolutionary passions towards counterproductive activities while endlessly fighting with the actually successful revolutionary forces.

This is what’s happened with the Maoist guerrilla movement in the Philippines. Whatever positive qualities this movement arguably has—such as that the territory it holds is based in support from the local workers and peasants, or that it represents an overall historically progressive force due to its potential role as a “popular revolution”—get undermined by its ultra-left nature. Even if its existence isn’t all bad, and could be bringing disruptions that ultimately lead to revolution, it’s not so far shown itself to be capable of being the vanguard of that revolution. 

This isn’t just because it consistently takes actions and stances that impede the transition to multipolarity, such as calling for Chinese businesses to be attacked or being interviewed by CIA outlets to promote anti-Chinese propaganda; the even bigger issue is that the ultra-left ideas behind its anti-China positions also drive it to fundamentally base its practice within adventurism. Its overall upholds the legacy of Gonzalo, the Maoist leader whose adventurist project helped momentarily ruined the hopes for progress within Peru; and as a consequence, its members keep carrying out actions that alienate it from the people. These actions sometimes come from lack of structural discipline (like when member were responsible for an incomprehensibly brutal sexual assault), or from actual army policies (like when members accidentally took the life of a baby while attacking police).

Due to these and other errors the movement has engaged in, the majority of the people throughout the Philippines have supported the government’s effort to suppress the insurgency. It’s not too plausible that this situation is only a prologue to when the movement ultimately wins the people’s support; because to be able to do that, it would have to give up its ultra-leftism. Which would partly entail redirecting its members towards genuinely transgressive efforts; efforts such as the country’s movement against U.S. military occupation. Which fights against an actual imperialist power, rather than the “imperialist China” caricature the Maoists have constructed. 

And given the demographics of these members, such a redemption for the movement isn’t likely; the movement is in great part made up of students, who given their ultra-left inclinations are the types of students which represent petty-bourgeois radicalism. There are parents groups focused on trying to get these young people out of this adventurist endeavor, and back to their families; which is another indication of how incompatible this endeavor is with the society it seeks to change. The grievances of these parents are valid, as the group targeting their children for recruitment is waging war not for the greater good but for a cause that’s irrefutably causing grievous harm. The movement’s five decades of fighting aren’t likely to end in victory, but rather an extinction of the organization due to success by the country’s superior radical elements.

Opposing multipolarity; and setting oneself up against anti-imperialist projects like Russia’s special operation or China’s BRI; are not only detrimental to the cause because of their macro effect of harming international anti-imperialist solidarity. They’re also counterproductive because engaging in these practices reinforces an infantile way of thinking. A way of thinking that renders one unable to win the struggle within one’s own conditions. 

If the African revolutionaries were to share the Maoist trait of disregarding the distinction between primary vs secondary contradictions; and let the secondary contradiction of modern Russia’s internal class character dissuade them from voicing solidarity with it; then they likely wouldn’t have taken the actions which have brought them to such a good place. Because in order for someone to view geopolitics through such an infantile lens, they would first have to be guided by ultra-leftism in fundamental ways. Due to the popular mandate for anti-colonial action that exists within these African countries, these revolutionaries would probably be able to get far even with an ultra-left mindset; but at a certain point, it would limit them, making them unable to fulfill the promises they made to the people. Only a serious movement can have a viable future.

In the empire’s core, the few U.S. Maoists who exist don’t represent the main left deviationist threat towards revolution, as they’re too marginal. What instead represents the main U.S. element of petty-bourgeois radicalism are reformist parties, primarily the PSL. It’s these parties that have come to weaponize ultra-leftist thinking against those who oppose their practice of tailing the Democratic Party. 

When the PSL denounced Russia’s special operation, I personally witnessed those defending its stance use the excuse that PSL only doesn’t want to support Russian capital; which is an ultra-left understanding of the situation that’s obviously not shared by movements like the one in Burkina Faso. When PSL’s ANSWER organizers used their March rally this year as a platform for attacking the pro-Russian U.S. communist orgs, these organizers justified this using ultra-left arguments against the antiwar coalition these orgs are helping build. So is the case for how the left deviationists have been responding to every other opportunity for building an antiwar movement outside the Democratic Party’s control: by portraying those who take these opportunities as betrayers of oppressed peoples.

The actors using this destructive tactic of weaponizing real or perceived contradictions against those most serious about anti-imperialism rationalize their actions often by claiming to merely be advancing the anti-colonial cause. The PSL, and the country’s other sources of left opportunism, have tried to present themselves as the most reliable upholders of the cause for social justice; therefore, those susceptible to ultra-left thinking have been inclined to be beholden towards PSL, and to believe all the smears against the pro-Russian formations. This practice, along with ultra-leftism’s broader tendency of getting one to view the masses as fundamentally reactionary, can only prevent its adherents from winning power. 

They’re disavowing Russia, and attacking Russia’s supporters, for the same reason the Philippine Maoists are attacking China: their practice is informed not by a materialist analysis, but by an ideologically underdeveloped reaction towards their alienation from capitalist society. It’s the same psychological dynamic that leads individuals to anarchism. Naturally, even many U.S. radicals who consider themselves Marxists have been joining with the anarchists in targeting those who share the view of Russia that so many Global South movements hold.

As a substitute for true dialectical understanding, these ultra-left elements are turning towards types of “anti-colonial theory” which often originate from liberal academia; Gerald Horne, with his depiction of the American revolution that tries to rewrite the event as a struggle to preserve slavery, is a major name within this theory. This only entrenches them further into a practice that functionally reinforces the dominance of the Democratic Party; because when you see the people as fundamentally reactionary, and are inclined to be suspicious of any domestic anti-imperialist effort which aligns with the world’s most effective revolutionary projects, you end up isolated to a role that stops you from building a relationship with the people. Petty-bourgeois radicalism is an insular type of practice, one whose participants inevitably become only motivated to build a base of support within a niche minority. 

In the imperial center, that niche looks like the circles of leftists and liberals, who orgs like PSL exclusively seek to appeal to. Adopting this strategy comes at the expense of gaining potential for authentic mass support.

The Democratic Party tailists, and the ultra-left actors who assist their projects, claim to represent our best hope for anti-colonial progress while aligning themselves with the central institutions of colonialism. The imperialist academic centers, as well as the New York Times, feel comfortable with promoting Horne’s critiques of colonial society because these types of critiques fundamentally don’t represent a threat towards the ruling class. They perpetuate the activism-industrial complex, whose orgs and defenders will always break from the anti-imperialist stances of the world’s successful revolutionaries. 

The DPRK, a socialist state created through anti-colonial rebellion against Japan, voices support for Russia; because like with these African liberation movements, the thinking which defines the DPRK’s government is based in a correct understanding of what advances the anti-colonial cause. The liberators around the globe which have succeeded share a mentality that the insular U.S. left, whose main goal is to appeal to liberals, simply doesn’t. 

We can’t get maximally expanded tribal sovereignty, or the other progress needed to liberate all races and nationalities within the U.S. working class, until the country’s workers movement becomes sufficiently led by the elements that share this prevailing global revolutionary mentality. To join with these elements is to make oneself a target, including within the “left” spaces; the communists who are most serious about combating imperialism’s psyops are the ones most liable to be attacked by the feds, as we’ve seen with the African People’s Socialist Party. These costs are worthwhile, though, for becoming a genuinely active agent within history. 

The imperialist institutions, and the “left” fandoms these institutions cultivate, represent a tiny social force compared to the gargantuan pro-Russian, pro-Chinese global movements which are defining this century’s class struggle. When you realize how much support the ideas of these movements have, you can’t be pressured by the anti-revolutionary forces within the core. You come to be in a better place, a place where you’re aligned with the empire’s greatest sources of opposition.

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