Yemen’s unstoppable resistance, & how it shows we can overcome the empire’s terror campaign

Above: a graphic that the Yemen Military Twitter account recently posted

Right now, the U.S. empire is trying to terrorize the world’s people into submission. This is the main purpose of Trump’s bombing campaign against Yemen, the extermination effort against Gazans, and the inevitable next assaults on Lebanon and Iran: to put fear into anybody who may defy the hegemon. The hope is that Russia, Iran, and the geopolitical “swing states” will be intimidated by these displays, then back away from any serious anti-imperialist goals.

The empire is also trying to put fear into the people of the United States, and the other imperialist countries. It’s criminalizing speech, disappearing people, and opening up the potential for citizens to be treated the same ways that non-citizens already are. This is only the beginning of the crackdown, and with the latest war escalations, our ruling class has the incentive to exponentially accelerate these repressive efforts. These are the objective realities we need to account for. Under no circumstances can we let our organizations become demoralized by these realities, though.

Demoralization is the outcome our enemies depend on, both in their foreign offensives and in their war against the American people. Therefore, one of our central priorities must be to cultivate a revolutionary joy within our circles; a joy that comes from confidence in our ability to win.

Healthy morale serves to defeat the illusion of invincibility that the imperial enemy is trying to create for itself; an illusion that it’s relying on in order for its next attacks to succeed. As Yemen’s resistance proves, the empire isn’t truly strong; not strong in the sense that it’s capable of eliminating all of its opponents with ease. This has never been the case for the U.S. empire, which got beaten back by the Korean and Chinese revolutionary forces right after it gained hegemon status. The world has also seen Washington’s weaknesses in Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine and Gaza; the illusion was truly shattered a long time ago.

The narrative managers are trying to re-create the illusion by saying the empire has succeeded in Yemen, but this lie will become exposed Ansarallah continues to successfully enforce the Red Sea blockade. Yemen’s military stated today that “We affirm, as we confront the aggression, that our military position today is better than it was weeks ago”; in Yemen, the imperialists have picked a fight with a revolutionary force that can’t simply be bombed into defeat. Ansarallah’s sources of strength run very deep.

Such imperial defeats have been instrumental in inspiring peoples to rise up. Just in the last few years, this process has created a global revolutionary wave; because of Russia’s recent anti-imperialist successes, we’ve seen a domino effect of revolts across Africa’s Sahel region. Operation Al Aqsa Flood was also partly carried out because of the hope which Russia’s military gains had created. When we look at the enemy’s offensive in this context, where the forces of popular revolution have shown their true strength, then we gain a crucial source of hope. This history provides an entirely rational reason to expect victory in our own class struggle, no matter how extreme our government’s purge becomes.

The task of overcoming terrorism and discouragement is about more than looking to the success stories. Another essential aspect is to construct the networks that can keep our operations going, however many individual members may get taken away. It’s when we make these efforts to fortify our institutions, and create a backup plan for the movement, that the enemy’s attacks can be rendered ineffectual from a practical standpoint. When you know your org is ready to replace its leaders, and to keep gaining new members even amid intense repression, then you don’t have reason to believe the state’s attacks will work. These attacks won’t be able to destroy what we’ve built, or prevent us from building more. Which means the sacrifices we make will matter in a tangible way.

The state wants each new story of political persecution to intimidate us. But we can’t be intimidated if we’re connected to a political project that’s outmaneuvering the state. Any “loss” we experience will be something that we anticipated, and unable to disrupt the progress of our organizational machine.

We have the blueprints for what an underground network would look like; there are communist parties that have needed to operate under dictatorial conditions, and that have written guides to how others can gain their resilience levels. That surveillance technology has advanced does not make such efforts futile; as recent anti-imperialist victories show us, these digital spying methods have vulnerabilities, ones that in certain ways make them weaker than human surveillance. When we’ve studied what these weaknesses are, we can outmaneuver even the most complex systems of control.

This organizational fortification project isn’t just about absorbing the state’s assaults. It’s about making these assaults backfire on the state, and create social disruptions that the counterinsurgency isn’t prepared to handle. A political persecution campaign can galvanize popular energy, drawing the masses into the struggle; that’s what we saw when Uhuru got raided by Biden’s FBI, and it’s what we’re seeing now with the Trump White House’s war on dissent.

Mahmoud Khalil has become a household name; Mohsen Madawi is on his way to becoming just as well-known; across the ideological spectrum, people see how alarming these detentions and disappearances are. The average American recognizes that acts of this nature represent an attack on everybody’s freedoms. Should we do the work to connect with the masses, and give the people an institutional outlet for fighting back, we’ll gain millions of allies.

An institution that I’ve lately been discussing is the American Communist Party, not just because of its worker organizing successes but because it can provide real protection for those who get targeted. When you’re part of an organization like this one, you’ll have a coordinated collective of friends across the country who are ready to assist you should the state come after you. Whether any given person wants to join ACP is their decision; but the biggest idea I seek to convey about ACP is that people should not be intimidated into distancing themselves from it, or from any other org that’s attracting the state’s attention. We must respond to these attacks by working to strengthen these orgs, or at least strengthen the coalitions they’re part of. That these groups are being targeted confirms they’re a threat to the system’s survival, and they’ll play a decisive role in the class war.

The incredible feats of resistance from the Palestinians, the Yemenis, and others show that things can change in unexpected ways, even amid the direst of circumstances. On their fronts in this struggle, these resisters continue to make progress in weakening the imperial structure. And their acts have provided new strategic and tactical lessons for revolutionaries around the world; through Ansarallah, for instance, I believe we’ve gained crucial knowledge which builds upon Che Guevara’s military theories.

At this moment throughout the American hemisphere, the revolutionary forces are in a defensive position. But in many places, the struggle has been reaching a highly advanced stage, a stage where the resisters can wear down the enemy’s infrastructure and resources. This trend will keep spreading to more countries, and in time it will reach the locations where the empire seemingly has the most control. When this happens, there will be forces which are ready to outmaneuver the imperial state, and lead the people towards victory.

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