The deepening crisis of our ruling class, and how it could bring victory to the anti-imperialist movement
That Biden’s proxy war against Palestine wasn’t planned; and has been embarked upon entirely in reaction to a development our ruling class didn’t anticipate; shows how much the elites are scrambling at the moment. The Ukraine proxy war was at least something that they foresaw, and that they therefore had time to prepare for; yet it’s now common knowledge that NATO has militarily lost against Russia, while the G7 countries have lost against BRICS in the wider economic war. With the start of a confrontation in Israel that the U.S. empire’s strategists weren’t even anticipating, Biden’s resolution to fight both proxy wars at the same time has no true confidence behind it. The institutions of colonization are even less equipped to fight off Palestine than they were to fight off Russia, and that’s apparent from how the Israelis are experiencing an accelerated version of the military failure which the Ukrainians have undergone.
It’s been made guaranteed that the imperialists can’t recolonize Eurasia, and that the hegemon’s Zionist tool for keeping control over southwest Asia can’t gain any meaningful victory over the Palestinian resistance. This is consistent with the trend where over the last couple of decades, since the empire sabotaged itself by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, the global forces for liberation have been coming to a place of greater advantage. Until recently, though, this great source of hope came with the tragic irony that within the core of imperialism, revolutionary politics was still in a bleak situation; with the destruction of the USA’s serious communist movement, and the perpetuation of an artificial version of the “left” that’s designed to be stagnant, the imperial state has been able to neutralize its sources of internal opposition.
That is until this last year, when the elements of the U.S. communist movement which have sided with Russia in the conflict came together with other anti-imperialists to form a coalition. This represented such a break from the lethargic paradigm within modern American activism because it was the first time since the Black Panther Party’s Rainbow coalition where communists had been able to significantly operate outside a niche; that the Democratic Party found itself unable to hold a monopoly over organizing spaces.
Because of this kind of momentum which U.S. communists have been able to generate; where a working-class project for resisting our ruling institutions can’t be constrained by the forces of opportunism; 2023 has turned into the best year for the antiwar movement in decades. Which not only means U.S. imperialism’s global targets have seen a strengthening of their allies within the imperial center, but also means the American labor movement has gotten closer to being defined by the synthesis that can bring it to victory. That being the synthesis between the domestic struggle, and the international struggle.
The only reason why this coalition and those adjacent to it aren’t so far being intensely targeted by the pro-imperialist smear machine is because the narrative managers know they can’t attack the authentic anti-imperialist movement without adding momentum to it. The media has been refraining from talking about the Uhuru solidarity org (a pro-Russian group that works with the other pro-Russian communists I’ve talked about) because if every American were to find out Uhuru exists, its mass support would vastly go up. The majority of Americans have been shown to share Uhuru’s desire to end aid to Ukraine, so increasing the org’s name recognition could backfire on the ruling elites. For that reason, at the moment the elites are trying to combat Uhuru and these other authentically transgressive groups by making them invisible next to the types of “socialist” orgs that the elites view as safe.
This is the dynamic that’s being cultivated by the recent developments in the reaction to the Gaza genocide; the PSL has instructed ANSWER to hold a Palestine march on the same day as, and nearby to, the Uhuru march that will be taking place in DC on November 4. Whether or not this was intended to distract from the Uhuru case, the effect it’s having is the same: to marginalize one element of the socialist movement, for the benefit of the element that the major media is comfortable with platforming. PSL’s leader Brian Becker operates with the central goal of fundraising, and it’s in the best interests of this goal (as well as of his org’s public relations) to be the most visible actor during this moment. That this prioritization of the aspirations of one org comes at the expense of the movement’s strategic interests; harming the effort to save anti-imperialists from the dangerous precedent which Uhuru’s conviction would create; is evidently seen by actors like Becker as irrelevant.
This negligence and selfishness on the part of those most prominent within organizing spaces represents the imperial state’s biggest strategic advantage at this stage. The empire can’t win its war on Russia, its war on China, its hybrid war on BRICS, nor ultimately its wars against the anti-colonial forces within Palestine and elsewhere. So the only war it truly has a chance of winning is the war against the USA’s own people. And to sell this war, it’s going to have to take away the means for speech and assembly from the majority of the population, while keeping those within this revolution-compatible majority too divided to change the power balance. The narrative the elites are going to put forth to justify this internal war will be one about the authentic anti-imperialist orgs being “fascist,” while the liberals ironically advance the biggest fascist practices by suppressing those who resist the war machine.
Essential for making this narrative believable is the presence of a controlled opposition; of “socialist” orgs that don’t get forced to go underground, and let the liberal fascists keep up an appearance of running a democracy. The PSL could come to fill such a role, given that Becker has shown a lack of concern over what’s best for Uhuru and therefore isn’t truly worried about the ramifications of Uhuru losing the case. To carry forth their next war operations, austerity policies, and national security state crackdowns, the elites need actors like Becker to gatekeep the popular struggle, giving those in the activist niche a false sense that they’re effectively resisting the state. This hope that such people are going to get from the compatible “left” orgs is false hope, though; and the history of the “socialists” who’ve tried to compromise with fascists shows that even they ultimately aren’t safe from the crackdowns.
The true hope is in projects like Uhuru; projects whose leadership will never dilute their anti-imperialist rhetoric, nor limit their mass outreach, for the sake of appeasing the Democratic Party. More and more are going to realize this; they’ll have to in order to assert their agency amid an effort by their government to take all agency away from them. With the coup that the Democratic Party’s wing of the ruling class has carried out throughout the new cold war, the Democrats and their appendages within the “left” have become the ones with the most ability to fight off imperialism’s challengers; they sought out this role of institutional and cultural dominance, and now that they’ve gotten it, they have to exercise their power in a way which makes the counter-revolution successful. It’s our job to make them fail, which we can accomplish if we instill our liberation project with the momentum to outmaneuver the centers of power.
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