The Russiagate-esque conspiracy theory about LaRouche being behind every independent antiwar group

Within the online left, there’s come to be a widespread conspiracy narrative, one which says that every independent antiwar figure or organization is secretly an extension of the late politician Lyndon LaRouche. What’s special about this conspiracy theory is that it’s exclusively been embraced by leftists, not even by liberals. I know this because I’ve looked for any mentions of LaRouche within the recent Guardian and Daily Kos articles about MAGA communism, and though these articles try to stigmatize pro-multipolar politics, they don’t try to link these politics to LaRouche. This is only something that sectarian leftists do when they want to find a way to discredit MAGA communists, CPI, Midwestern Marx, and the other pro-Russian communist forces.

The most prominent among these conspiracists is “Jonny Socialism,” the social media attack dog who’s based his brand around making such insinuations. In one tweet, for example, he implicitly tries to paint Caleb Maupin as a LaRouche plant by simply pointing to how Maupin has been connected to LaRouche people at some point. Which looks compelling to someone who’s prejudiced against anybody that challenges Jonny’s pan-leftist stance, but a connection doesn’t equal string-pulling.

The LaRouche conspiracy has the same nature as the Russiagate conspiracy, and it’s in essence an extension of Russiagate. Like how the Russiagaters have pointed to any and all Trump-Russia connections as “proof” that Russia colluded with Trump to sway the election, promoters of the LaRouche narrative draw sweeping conclusions from relatively scant evidence. They point to any instance of pro-Russian communists working with LaRouche people, then conclude from this that all Russia supporters are tools of LaRouche. This is like when Russiagaters pretend like someone working for RT makes them a Russian asset, or when somebody is suspicious just because they’ve allegedly been boosted by Russian social media.

What both of these conspiracies have in common is the implication that the bogeyman is so dangerous, so uniquely insidious, that associating with them in any way makes you nothing more than a pawn in their power game. The truth is that both the American journalists who’ve engaged with RT, and the antiwar activists who’ve engaged with the LaRouchist Schiller Institute, have simply been doing the logical thing for somebody in their situation. If you’re involved in alt or dissident media, it makes sense to find opportunities within RT or other foreign press outlets. Even some figures who’ve had careers in the legacy media have decided RT is their best option, simply because RT has good things to offer them. Likewise, Schiller is a group that’s involved in the antiwar movement, making it logical that many communists who take a consistent anti-imperialist stance have found themselves in proximity to Schiller members. 

It’s dishonest to act like this means the Kremlin is controlling everybody who’s been featured in RT segments, or like Schiller is pulling the strings behind everybody who’s involved in these antiwar circles. That’s not how either of these arenas work. RT America isn’t working to make its employees or contributors into pawns in a globally destructive psyop project, because the Russian government doesn’t have the incentive to do such a thing like how U.S. media does. As it’s the USA that’s imperialist, not Russia. There’s no evidence of U.S. RT correspondents like Caleb Maupin being trained to push coordinated lies, because the culture RT fosters is one that encourages independence and diversity of thought. There’s a comparable kind of ideological diversity within the Rage Against the War Machine organizing coalition, which includes Schiller people, communists, libertarians, and others. 

We communists within this space aren’t pawns of the Schiller people, anymore than they’re pawns of us. It’s a dynamic of equal organizational footing, where the different groups and individuals operate as they would otherwise. The only thing that’s changed about these antiwar actors since they entered into this coalition is that they’re now committed to building an anti-imperialist united front.

The real problem the promoters of the LaRouche conspiracy have is that such a united front exists. That we pro-Russian communists haven’t refused to build any alliances outside of leftism. They want us to join them in disavowing everybody who they haven’t approved as the acceptable allies, which would leave us with no other option for anti-imperialist organizing than what they have to offer. And what they have to offer is not compatible with an effective anti-imperialist struggle. This is both because CPUSA, PSL, and the other major left orgs oppose Russia’s Ukraine action; and because they’re interested not in reaching the broad masses but merely in reaching leftists. The latter is apparent in how the PSL has run the pro-Palestine movement, with it counterproductively working to block roads, sending its members to go on political rants to Starbucks employees, and tying Palestine to the left-wing culture war positions which PSL centers its practice around.

PSL is just one small part of the problem, but it’s necessary for me to articulate these critiques of it in order to show exactly why pro-Russian communists have made the alliances we’re in. When the predominant parts of the left have shown that they don’t want to lead a serious anti-imperialist struggle, and aren’t open to changing their mode of practice, the only way to be effective is by organizing beyond the left. That’s what I’ve had to realize since I entered into this struggle. And another conclusion I recently came to is that it was a mistake to have ever viewed leftism as the ideal place for building coalitions. There’s a fundamental difference between being a leftist and being a communist; leftism and communism have always been in conflict, to a greater extent than I believed them to be even recently. We see this conflict in how it’s specifically the leftists, not even the liberals, who are now pushing a conspiracy about LaRouche being behind everyone with a serious anti-imperialist practice.

The coalition that we’ve entered into isn’t our second best option compared to a coalition with the left. It’s our best option. This is something that I needed years of experience within the anti-imperialist struggle in order to come to understand. But with the way the USA’s communist movement is developing, I have reason to believe this won’t be the case for many future communists in this country. 

I entered into this struggle as a leftist, which gave me baggage that delayed my development towards becoming serious about anti-imperialism. But a growing amount of the people coming to communism are doing so while starting as libertarians, or as conservatives, or as individuals who used to be politically unaligned. And if Trump wins this election, we could see many more MAGA people defect towards communism. Because Trump keeps his followers loyal by convincing them that he’s willing to combat the war machine, the intelligence centers, and the forces of monopoly capital. If he’s allowed to fail at these tasks again during a time when inflation has gotten this bad, and the people are desperate for the monopolists to be defeated, many conservatives could become disillusioned.

This is the opportunity for advancing the class struggle that the left refuses to take advantage of, but that we have no problem with leveraging. We understand that it’s not just okay, but preferable, to build beyond the left. And this is what makes us capable of winning. The rumor mongering about LaRouche is an attempt to block our victory, but it will be rendered totally ineffectual if we put in the work to carry out a mass mobilization. 

This particular conspiracy narrative isn’t even being sold to the masses, it’s only being sold to a niche group of people. The average person wouldn’t be able to understand it if they were to see it. To be compelled by the LaRouche conspiracy, someone first needs to pick up on the lingo and inside knowledge of the online left. Because that’s never going to be where most people are at, this narrative’s effectiveness is limited.

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