The imminent threat of pro-Palestine work being criminalized, & how we can make our orgs survive the purge attempt
When I say the pro-Palestine movement is in danger of becoming illegalized, I’m referring to a category of repression that’s distinct from the one we’re seeing at the present stage. If the crackdown I’m talking about plan gets successfully realized, the state is going to go so much further than arresting people at pro-Palestine protests for petty or construed offenses. It’s going to start raiding and charging people for so much as participating in anti-imperialist political assembly, rather than cracking down on them after they’ve already managed to put together actions. And this next great wave of repression is potentially going to be less easy to counteract than the one the U.S. government carried out in 2010.
The raids on anti-imperialist orgs from that time were able to be ended through widespread resistance efforts among activist groups. When the government tries this again, it could actually succeed, because there’s now a lack of will among most of these groups to seriously combat the national security state.
This deficiency in today’s civil liberties movement comes from how Uhuru—the first org the state has raided as part of the latest repressive project—is viewed as a pariah among the majority of the organized “left.” Since 2010, the new cold war has become a central issue of contention within leftist spaces, with one camp opposing Russia and the other camp supporting it. Because Uhuru is in the pro-Russia camp, and supports the idea of building an anti-imperialist coalition beyond the “left,” most of the country’s “socialist” groups haven’t been backing Uhuru. They’ve either been ignoring the case, or “supporting” Uhuru only in words, prioritizing their own immediate interests over what’s best for the fight against the indictments.
Because of this betrayal, we’re now much more likely to see the state’s repressive plans be carried through than we were fourteen years ago. The 2010 purge attempt was only stopped because the people with the resources and organizational strength decided to take the threat seriously. Now that these same people and their successors aren’t taking it seriously, it’s likely that we’re months away from the worst defeat for civil liberties we’ve seen in our lifetime. The trial for the Uhuru 3 is going to be on September 3, and unless the Hands off Uhuru movement sees a sudden rise, the state will get the precedent it so badly wants. It will be able to charge everyone who does international anti-imperialist solidarity work, like how it charged Uhuru with “Russian interference” for combating the Ukraine psyop.
This perilous situation shows us something, though: the first measure we can take to ensure the survival of our organizations is to redouble our agitation on civil liberties. If the main left orgs refuse to replicate the civil liberties movement’s victory from fourteen years ago, then we who are independent from these orgs must be the ones to fulfill this task.
As short as this deadline is, there are things we can do to strengthen our movement amid the growing siege. At the moment, one of our most urgent and useful tasks is to build networks among orgs which are on different ends of the ideological spectrum, but are on the same side in the struggle against the war machine. The more we expand our connections to others who are principled on anti-imperialism, the greater support we’ll have as the state’s next attacks come.
Constructing this network doesn’t mean taking a pan-leftist stance, because to get support from all kinds of leftists, we’d need to appease the ones who are imperialism-compatible. What we need is pan anti-imperialism, where all who oppose U.S. hegemony are able to join in an organizing coalition. And such principled organizational forces can be found, if you’re willing to look beyond the conventional “left” groups. Writes Peter Coffin about how one of these orgs, the PSL, contrasts with a group which has practiced genuine solidarity:
While PSL professes to stand with marginalized communities, its failure to actively support Uhuru, especially when the group is under attack by the US government, raises questions about the authenticity of PSL’s commitment to solidarity. Uhuru’s struggle against state repression is emblematic of the broader fight for racial and economic justice. Their efforts to address systemic inequalities and advocate for the empowerment of black communities align with the basic principles socialism and anti-imperialism require. However, PSL’s silence on this front suggests a selective approach to solidarity, where support is offered only when it aligns with the organization’s specific agenda or public image…I am a proud member of The Center for Political Innovation (CPI), though I don’t want to actively say, “This is the answer to the critique I have brought forward.” CPI is not a party, nor can it act as a replacement for one. That said, our organization emphasizes moving beyond the spectacle and embracing the hard work of organizing, coalition-building, and engaging with diverse communities. Obviously, I would encourage people to check us out, but people don’t need CPI to do any of this. They just need to be able to identify useful actions and take them.
That’s the start of the solution: identify the problem of left opportunism within today’s activist spaces, and build organizations which advance a program that’s not compromised by such opportunistic interests. The present moment, where pro-Palestine civil disobedience is exploding, provides an opening for advancing this alternative organizing project. We should take advantage of these protests, but not by simply showing up at them to self-promote, like the typical left orgs are doing. What the CPI instead advocates for is to go into protests, and find what kinds of ideological differences exist among the protesters so that we can build relationships with the ones who have anti-opportunist leanings.
There are plenty of actors who’ve come into the protests so that they can promote an imperialism-compatible version of “socialism.” The Trotskyist group Socialist Alternative has been passing out anti-China polemics at the actions, with this only being the most unconcealed example of opportunistic activities. There’s also the problem of groups which promote adventurism. ANSWER, the most prominent organizational manager of protests, engages in the counterproductive tactic of blocking roads. And because ANSWER is run by PSL, it by extension represents PSL’s indifferent attitude towards Uhuru, and its “neither NATO nor Russia” stance.
The best way for us to engage with these protests is by seeking out the principled elements among them. We have to establish connections with the Palestine supporters who lack an investment in the modern version of “leftism,” so that we can better prepare for the dangers to come.
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The effort to pressure the state into not convicting Uhuru falls within the category of “totally worthwhile, yet we can’t do without a backup plan if it fails.” The momentum behind this purge attempt is massive, if only because of the organized left’s refusal to resist. And should we not be able to make up for the harm these orgs have done towards the civil liberties movement, we’ll find ourselves in a situation where the state is enabled to wage open war against us.
I’m now getting into a territory where I need to write with lots of subtext, because when discussing plans to escape the grip of your own governments, you can’t give away too many details. A good phrase to use for these kinds of conversations is “what’s understood doesn’t need to be said.” It’s safe for me to present details about the history of underground U.S. socialist organizing, though.
During World War I and the time of the Red Scare, the illegalized orgs were able to keep operating through a secrecy for the core organizing activities, and a use of front groups which could draw the public into these efforts. In CPI’s textbook Out of the Movement, to the Masses, Caleb Maupin writes about how this project’s leader William Foster outmaneuvered the state:
Foster and his labor movement allies went to Bridgeman, Michigan for a secret meeting held in a forest. At this meeting the Communist Party, the Communist Labor Party, a faction that had been expelled from the Socialist Party, along with Foster’s trade union allies, all merged into the organization now called the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), which was recognized as the American section of the Communist International. The African Blood Brotherhood, a secret society led by Harry Haywood of Black activists who taught armed self-defense against lynching and racist terror also merged into the CPUSA at the founding unity convention. The convention was raided by the newly formed “Bureau of Investigation” and many of those who participated in it were arrested and charged with state and federal crimes…The Communist Party emerged from the convention as a clandestine underground organization. Messages were sent in code. Meetings were held in secret. The Communist Party operated through a legal party called the Workers Party of America that officially had no ties to Moscow and did not advocate revolution. The Workers Party held public meetings and ran for office, and was secretly controlled by the illegal Communist Party.
This is where it again becomes important to differentiate what the PSL is doing, from what an authentically revolutionary practice looks like. Because the PSL wants its followers to believe that its disavowal of Russia’s anti-fascist Ukraine action is a strategically necessary way for the org to remain legal, in the same way it was necessary for the Workers Party to distance itself from Moscow. What makes the PSL’s compromises a betrayal, rather than something essential, is that there’s no hidden revolutionary operation behind PSL’s liberal face.
The organization isn’t a front for a group that has ties to the globe’s anti-imperialist forces. If anything, it’s a front for the liberal NGOs that it’s dependent on. It’s the CPI that has ties to the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, whose members have gone to Russia to establish connections with officials, and that has allies (such as Uhuru) which have done similar international work. PSL only has relations with Cuba because the liberal NGOs don’t see that country as among Washington’s biggest threats. And by being hostile to Moscow, it’s cut itself off from a vast and crucial section of the global anti-imperialist movement.
I don’t just say this to show which side of the movement is principled on anti-imperialism. I also say it to illustrate that among the orgs which have embraced consistent international outreach, there’s an urgent need to employ the kinds of protective measures the early CPUSA used. Our connections to Washington’s biggest adversaries are out in the open, and that’s a good thing, because it lets us demonstrate that we can be trusted not to sell out to the imperialists. If or when our orgs become illegalized, though, we must do what the CPUSA did, and start relating to the public from behind front groups. One way we can do this is by joining and working in unions, including reactionary unions, so that we can agitate among the most organized workers.
Depending on how legal anti-imperialist speech is going to be at any given time, this could involve rallying these union workers towards defying the pro-imperialist, Democrat-aligned politics of the labor bureaucracy. Many within these unions have already been doing this in response to their leadership’s complicity on Gaza. These pro-Palestine union members haven’t needed to establish connections with any foreign government or entity in order to have this revolutionary role, their vocal dissatisfaction is enough. Meaning if we can gain enough of a presence within the unions, we’ll be able to do the equivalent of what the CPUSA did. We can utilize labor-centered orgs which aren’t officially tied to Washington’s adversaries, while maintaining an internationally connected circle in secret. And we can do so both by creating whatever new version of the Workers Party which we may find necessary to set up, as well as keeping a less detectable labor presence through our members in the unions.
This strategy can only go so far, though. What happens if the government starts arresting groups which it can’t even prove has had foreign contacts, whether by fabricating accounts of such contacts or by charging the groups on some other construed basis? What if Washington decides to do what Indonesia’s military dictatorship did, and target not just communists or anti-imperialists but also everybody who’s so much as involved in organized labor? It would make sense for the 21st century’s big U.S. crackdown to go that much further than the 20th century’s did, because today the state has the technology to easily detect covert activities. Should we fail to keep the communications between our front groups and our core groups truly hidden, or leave our organizational structures weak enough to be destroyed as soon as any infiltrators enter into them, the state’s counterinsurgency will succeed.
This means that though agitating against the Uhuru crackdown is worthwhile, and establishing front groups is necessary in the longer term, we must also think beyond these things. We must prepare for what could happen when the class struggle has escalated to its most intense stage.
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Our great strategic advantage within this power struggle is that should the state start using direct violence against its own people on the same level that it’s used against peoples abroad, it’s going to make its own demise all the more likely. If our government creates an equivalent of the one the Zionist state has created, wherein the existing regime is facing a guerilla revolt with popular support, then it will be even more vulnerable than the “Israeli” settler state is.
Whereas the Zionist state can at least draw upon a large social base of settlers who have a primary material stake in maintaining Zionism, the U.S. government would be up against a population of workers who share a hatred for it, regardless of their racial backgrounds. Many U.S. soldiers would also be likely to defect in the event of a revolutionary scenario, unlike the IDF soldiers who are almost blankedly going to remain loyal towards Zionism. The Palestinian resistance is on its way to victory, no matter what the settler element wants. How well could our ruling class, which is increasingly isolated due to the shrinking of the bribed “labor aristocracy,” manage to do a domestic U.S. equivalent of what the “Israelis” are doing?
It’s because carpet bombing U.S. neighborhoods would galvanize the people against the state that our ruling class is trying to wage counterinsurgency by every other possible means. Instead of imposing a full military crackdown in 2020, the state redirected the people’s outrage from that moment towards reformist projects, while building “Cop City” militarized police training centers in all but three states. For as menacing as Cop City is, it comes with a risk of provoking the people into a level of revolt which the government can’t manage. Whether a military crackdown comes in the form of the actual military, or police that have been transformed into de facto militaries, the danger of it backfiring is going to be there.
Given how vulnerable the U.S. capitalist dictatorship truly is, the effort to purge anti-imperialists could bring this dictatorship’s end. It all depends on how good of a job we do at outmaneuvering our class enemies.
Should we be prepared to go underground, establish fronts, and use this to buy ourselves time for gaining more strength, we’ll then be able to strategically prevail when the crackdown reaches its most extreme stages. This will mean an effort to rally the people, taking a leadership role in revolts which resemble history’s successful uprisings against dictatorships. (Except we’ll need to make sure to establish a workers democracy, which many of those past rebellions failed to establish.) This effort could purely involve actions which the broad masses can participate in, like strikes and demonstrations. Or it could also involve activities wherein the most trained cadre members do what people like Che Guevara have done. For legal reasons, and because I can’t predict the future, I need to say I’m not advocating for that. I’m only looking at the many potential outcomes which the climax of our class conflict could produce.
Since 2008, when the U.S. entered into an ongoing depression for its working-class people, the country has been a powder keg for social unrest. The ruling class has been able to manage the revolts from this time well enough that the U.S. empire can carry on its foreign policy designs, as shown by how the Ukraine proxy war soon followed the 2020 revolt. It remains to be seen, though, whether the system can absorb the pro-Palestine uprising. This unrest, and the events which provoked it, represent potentially catastrophic developments for the imperial order.
The imperialists weren’t able to anticipate the October 7 maneuver by the Palestinian resistance, like they had anticipated Russia’s Ukraine action. (Though the “Israelis” knew about the plan Hamas had, in their hubris they dismissed it as impossible to put into practice.) As the imperialists have continued failing to subdue Russia, they’ve since been throwing even more money at an additional fight which their “Israeli” proxies can’t win. Now they’re needing to try to divert the energy of a domestic anti-imperialist rebellion, one that could catalyze unprecedented advances in our class struggle.
Should we defeat the initial, co-optation focused part of the counterinsurgency, and separate the pro-Palestine movement from the Democratic Party, the state is going to utilize its violent tools more substantially. And regardless, it’s going to do all it can to make the Uhuru case into a precedent for disregarding freedom of assembly and expression. At every stage in this repressive creep, we should do all we can to resist the state’s maneuvers. But even if the crackdown gets fully implemented, we’ll have a way to win.
Whether we can come to victory amid these obstacles depends on how secure, well-connected, and physically equipped we make our cadres. It also depends on how intelligent we are at discerning who are friends and foes will be as the class conflict escalates. Because even though these protests are definitely worthy of support, there are many left-wing counter-gangs which are trying to gain influence within them. We need to fortify the struggle against these forces.
When somebody shows you who they are, believe them. The types of radical liberals who consider pro-Russia and pro-China communists to be “fascists” aren’t compatible with the anti-imperialist united front we’re trying to build, and they certainly can’t be counted on not to sabotage short-term actions. Such ultraviolent elements within the left are going to be a major part of the counterinsurgency, acting as substitutes for the state’s official armed forces. And they’re the most glad to help undermine solidarity with Uhuru.
The good news is that given how peaceful these protests have been (despite the efforts by police to provoke violence), and how the left anti-communist sentiments within them appear to be relatively rare, the left counter-gangs don’t control these actions as much as they would like to. This uprising isn’t a psyop, however much the psyop agents are trying to manipulate it. It is a real threat to the ruling class, both because it’s disrupting the imperialist order and because it could bring a strengthening for the anti-imperialist orgs. The students within the protests are just one small part of the masses, but we should connect with the ones among them who are open towards a principled anti-imperialist agenda. Then we need to keep expanding our reach, while providing the people with a leadership that’s capable of surviving the imminent purge attempt.
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