Addressing Our Critics

Roderic Day is a Fraud; GenZhou are clueless Baizuo undergrads

Insufferably pseudo-intellectual hucksters like Roderic Day remind us that not brilliance, but the willingness to tweet, share, and publicize oneself, even if it consists in the most amateur of theorizing (if you can even call it that) is the surest guarantee of exposure and clout among the Anglo-American left. People like Roderic, Hakim, Luna Oi, GenZeDong redditors and countless others have absolutely no grasp of Marxism-Leninism or theory. They do, however, have a willingness to share their thoughts publicly, which has earned them a large following.

Roderic, et. al had the misfortune of attempting to undertake a critique of the views of the Infrared Collective. This was clearly a mistake, as, unlike the bluffer and huckster Roderic, we’re a media collective that actually know what we’re talking about. Bellow, you will witness one of our members dismantle some of the most common ‘criticisms’ of so-called ‘socialist patriotism’ coming from Roderic and the brilliant undergraduate students of GenZhou. Initially, this substack was not to be released. Yet now, with Canada’s Freedom Convoy likely to make inroads into the United States, we could not have picked a better time to release it.

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Roderic, and several other brilliant Marxist Tweeters have accused our position of Tailism. Let us actually educate the audience about what this word actually means.

The first accusation of tailism was in reference to Lenin’s What is To Be Done, which criticizes the economist for never advancing beyond trade unionist consciousness, and criticizes those who tail behind the most advanced sections of the proletariat and instead pander to their reactionary elements and sentiments. But the question of which elements were ‘backward’ and which were ‘advanced’ was not in regards to how ‘woke’ they were, but their position in relation to the political class struggle. It was called tailism because it reified the tail of what was an objective worker’s movement, and this tail referred to its most spontaneous elements even after they had, as a result of its development, matured into a political form.

Yet the political form of the party arose in response to and in regards to the ground of the worker’s movement, even in its earliest stages. Tailists were not guilty of pandering to ‘backward views,’ but to reifying spontaneity and substituting it for the responsibility of the class-conscious party-form. On the one hand, this actually loses any connection to an authentic spontaneity (having been reified), and on the other absconds the party-form. What Roderic is effectively suggesting, is that the authentic working class movement has somehow culminated in his person, or his leftist friends, as the ‘most advanced segments of the working class’ and the political class struggle. Should we hold our laughter? The truth is, in countries like America there is not yet any meaningful distinction between head and tail (evinced by the fact that so many Anglo-Americans, like Roderic, don’t know their head from their ass), since anything remotely close to a worker’s movement has not yet acquired the form of a political class struggle.

For our part, we have promoted the Communist Party of the USA precisely so that the primitive and spontaneous forms of working-class consciousness that now exist, may acquire the definite form of a political party which stands as the spiritual (Lenin) organ of the proletarian class struggle. The accusation of tailism is baseless. It results from some kind of whig-historical perversion of its original meaning, according to which the ‘tail’ refers to those not yet educated about neopronouns or something, rather than a definite segment of a definite, and real, working class movement and political class struggle. Roderic doesn’t have a fucking clue about what he’s talking about. Tailism is not about being politically correct or not, it is about the role of the party in the working class movement; whether the latter acquires political, rather than strictly economic form or not. No ifs or buts about it, it’s that simple. And no, woke cultural bullshit is not a real form of politics.

The view that woke cultural bullshit and ‘political correctness’ represents the ‘head’ or spiritual organ of the working class is itself what we have contested. We do not simply insist upon the materiality of the working class as opposed to the spirit, we contest the view that Roderic and other Baizuo have taken spiritual leadership of the working class at all. Their sanitized wokeness and unhinged, wholly bourgeois moralism has nothing in common with any advanced ‘proletarian consciousness.’ Proletarian consciousness is not measured by airy-fairy bourgeois morality, but by the tactical cunning forged in struggle, the steel that is tempered in it. It does not mean who virtue signals the most or who expresses the most woke, moral (according to the latest corporate or big tech trend) view. It is consciousness of the world-historical mission of the proletariat.

It is not simply that we think their scolding of workers for not being educated enough is futile and will get nowhere. Their education is itself the education of the bourgeois ideologist, and not the working class. As Lenin said, frauds like Roderic think they are the shining, bright head of movement. In reality, they are less than shit of the movement, as this implies they have any relation to a movement whatsoever - they are shit of the nation, the shit of the society, the shit of humanity. They are not accultured in the basics of literature, of what Lenin calls the treasures of mankind. People like Roderic are philistines, they completely flatter themselves even according to their own illiterate definition of ‘tailism:’ In what universe are people like Roderic the representatives of some kind of accultured, educated segment? This guy doesn’t know shit about anything, a complete pseudo-intellectual fraud and clown.

Let us be clear: We reject American leftism. We reject Baizuo ideology, we reject political correctness, we reject their false morality, their views on race, gender, sexuality, oppression, power, culture, et. al all together - we reject it wholly and fully. We do not simply think it can be ‘saved for later.’ We spit on it, reject it, as completely false and unworthy of the basic dignity of serious thought. He who initiates himself into the morality of corporate big-tech, is a prostitute of the bourgeoisie, they have not adopted this ‘advanced and progressive’ ideology because it is worthy of consideration by thought or even by material intuition - but because they are submitting to the authority of the status quo and don’t want to be ostracized by their fellow mindless cucked career-climbing peers. Roderic laughably accuses us, the Infrared Collective of tailism? Any one of our members can give him a lifetime worth of education, and he still wouldn’t have enough time to catch up with us!

And even the so-called ideology of patriotic socialism, furthermore, could not be any further from these accusations. To begin with, in the context of contemporary American politics, it is extremely novel and is promoted only by a handful of influencers. It would be curious to see which segment of the masses already hold the beliefs that we are “pandering” to, according to Roderic. That most Americans, across national and ethnic lines, are patriotic, is a given. What is not a given, however, is that socialism is the true form of patriotism. In the context of America, where the name of socialism has been run through the mud by synthetic lefitst(inheriting the agenda of the CIA) and patriotism ceded to right wing figureheads, it is at first an unlikely union and a scandalous affair.

But perhaps, Roderic, sensing the populistic nature of socialist patriotism, sensing that what is now a single spark, will tomorrow be a prairie fire, has decided that it must be condemned as reactionary pandering(to a future audience). But what character will this future audience hold? Historically, who might stand to benefit from a class based alliance between the different nations and peoples of America? When the Black Panthers partnered up with the Young Patriots were they committing the error of tailism? Were the members of the rainbow coalition the kind of “reactionary” masses that we are being accused of pandering to?

That socialism is the true form of patriotism, and that patriotism is the true form of socialism, while common amongst Communist internationally and historically, is a novel insight that gives proper form to the real sentiments of the American people.

As opposed to merely parroting the false expression of patriotism pushed by the elites, and taken for granted by the left, we are distilling it’s true form. Far from appealing to reactionary or chauvinist sentiments, we take the position that to truly love one’s country and one’s people means to focus on the development of that country and not on state building abroad. It means to do right by those nations historically oppressed within one’s country, and the understanding that this is mutually beneficial for all parties involved. All of this was either directly stated or implied by the video, Socialist Patriotism: America vs. America, that Roderic was responding to when he accused us of tailism. It is news to me that honoring the promise of 40 acres and a mule, and respecting the treaties made with Native American tribes(along with other forms of recompense) is a form of tailism. Roderic never quite addressed any of these things in the midst of all his accusations, so I’m curious as to what connections he made between the two. This segment of our video, goes suspiciously unaddressed by him. 

For those who think that this position, of an anti-imperialist socialist patriotism is contradictory, I need only direct you to Marx himself, who in agreement with me, states in the Communist manifesto,  “Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle.” 

Stalin elaborates on this, “The period of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the building of socialism in the USSR is a period of the flowering of national cultures that are socialist in content and national in form.” And as it should go without saying, this was true also for Russian culture, not only for those nations that were oppressed by the Russian empire.

Mao, also concurs here, “Similarly, in applying Marxism to China, Chinese communists must fully and properly integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, or in other words, the universal truth of Marxism must be combined with specific national characteristics and acquire a definite national form if it is to be useful, and in no circumstances can it be applied subjectively as a mere formula.”

It is indisputable, that the claim that the form of socialism is patriotic, is very deeply rooted within the Marxist-Leninist canon. The form of socialism is always grounded within the particular realities of the countries in which it arises, within its  history, its culture, it’s people, its people's way of life, their rituals and so on. How can this be the case if socialism is a rejection of one’s people and one’s country? It cannot be the case. Love for one’s country and one’s people is a precondition for socialism in the first place.

Now if we follow the logic of Roderic and his clique, that this only applies to oppressed countries with a clean history, how come this applied to Russia? Who, while oppressed, was also at the same time the oppressor of many nations. And, according to the logic of the anti-patriot crowd, if historical tragedies are a basis for the rejection of one’s history wholesale, how is it that Chinese Communism is deeply based in the Chinese historical heritage? Why was Mao inspired by and associated with Qin Shi Huangdi and legalism? Why is it that there has been a revival of Confucianism under Xi Jinping? A basic knowledge of history would show that the extent to which successful Communist have learned from their history and taken pride in their history, is in no way related to the extent to which that history was tragic.  And even the most rudimentary knowledge of Tsarist Russia and the USSR would reveal that they were not reducible to merely an “oppressed” country.  In Lenin’s Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, he lists Tsarist Russia in a chart of the colonial possessions of the  “six great powers.”

Very basic knowledge for anyone who is familiar with the work of Lenin, it really makes one have their doubts about the knowledge of the people claiming to be the experts of Marxism-Leninism in the West.  And not only were the Bolsheviks patriotic,  they also did not liquidate Russian history, art and culture on the basis of it’s colonialism, but instead remained firmly rooted in it’s achievements. According to the logic of the anti-patriots this should have resulted in chauvinism, and yet they were the first really existing force of anti-imperialism. To reduce any country's history down only to it’s crimes, while also throwing out it’s treasures, is a form of barbarism. Just as Russia, while formerly a colonial power, was not defined by this, neither is America. We American Communist must root ourselves in the same revolutionary history that made Communist across the world proud.(Another position taken in our Video, that Roderic has never properly responded to)

The same America that Roderic and others reject as nothing more than barbarism, Lenin praised for its revolutionary tradition,”The American people have a revolutionary tradition which has been adopted by the best representatives of the American proletariat, who have repeatedly expressed their complete solidarity with us Bolsheviks. That tradition is the war of liberation against the British in the eighteenth century and the Civil War in the nineteenth century.” Lenin, Letter to American workers, 1918. Yet another reference from our video that he suspiciously never addressed, despite all his claims of duhringism and tailism. Why doesn’t he accuse us of Marxism and Leninism? Did our repeated references to Marx, Lenin and to Marxist Leninist simply escape his view despite how good of an eye he had for our 3 second reference to Heidegger? What is clear with Roderic is that his conception of our position is highly dishonest and fraudulent.

What we are actually guilty of, is our failure to pander to and virtue signal to the Ultra Leftist fanatics who have desecrated the name of Communism.

These Ultra Leftist have their class basis in a strata of social parasites. They are among the most reactionary segments of the American populace, who, like Marx described, “manifests itself also in the ruling class as the division of mental and material labor, so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class(its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood)[..]” Marx, The German Ideology.

It is Roderic, who is most guilty of tailism. He uses socialism as a vehicle for the reactionary beliefs of these social parasites, and does the ideological work of the bourgeoisie. The same conception of settler colonialism and land back rhetoric, that Roderic’s position takes for granted, is being used to promote US aggression against China(another point of our video, Roderic in his all encompassing criticisms, failed to respond to).

Sound suspiciously close to Adrian Zenz accusations about Han settlers in Xinjiang? Not enough on the head for you? What about this person who suggests that Han “settlers” must either have a phobia of Uighurs, leave Xinjiang, or join the very separatists that the US so greatly hopes to destabilize the region?

Roderic has built his brand on being anti-imperialist, against aggression towards China, perhaps even as being Pro-China, and yet his ideology is being put to use perfectly by UK and US imperialists in an attempt to destabilize China. So, perhaps, it is he who is guilty of tailism, who lags behind the working class and feeds them the ideology of the bourgeoisie. My prediction is that when he really comes to terms with the emergence of the multipolar world and the rise of China, when China is no longer an orientalist fantasy for his enjoyment, he will explicitly support the United States’ aggression.

The Anti-Duhring

Even more laughable than his accusation of tailism, is his repeated references to Duhring, and the claim that we inherit his “social conservatism.” It makes one wonder if he’s ever read the Anti-Duhring, or has ever read Engels at all.

To start with, the claim that Duhring was socially conservative in general, is a claim that can be easily debunked. What Roderic means to say is that Duhring was a German chauvinist, something that has a very different meaning, and no connection at all to the question of patriotism, other than the fact that historically it has sometimes falsely wrapped itself up in the same robes.

Here is a quote from the so called “conservative,” Duhring, “In the free society there can be no religious worship; for every member of it has got beyond the primitive childish superstition that there are beings, behind nature or above it, who can be influenced by sacrifices or prayers” {D. Ph. 286}. A “socialitarian system, rightly conceived, has therefore ... to abolish all the paraphernalia of religious magic, and therewith all the essential elements of religious worship”. This is the “conservatism,” that Engels criticized for his inability to, “[..]wait until religion dies this, its natural, death.” Engels, Anti-Duhring.

What we find most consistent in Duhring’s beliefs, is neither social conservatism nor social progressivism, but rather right wing and left wing utopian excesses of all kinds. From his ideal conception of how the family should work to the details of how he envisions academics will function in a new socialist society.  What all of these positions share in common, is like Roderic, Duhring starts from the position of what ought to be and creates an idealized vision of the world based upon what he believes a socialist society should be like. 

Duhring’s (chauvinistic)belief that a future socialist society would have a pedagogy that removes dead languages, and only teaches foreign languages in a very limited capacity, has more in common with Roderic’s landback fantasies, than our grounded position of land reform. While entirely different in the substance of their beliefs, both Roderic and Duhring share the same utopian conception of socialism, where one starts from what they believe to be Ideal and moral for socialism, and imposes it onto reality. Materialists do not impose their idea of the Good upon reality, but as we said in the video, “Find the Good in the real.” As materialists we start from reality. In contrast to the Utopian socialism and the Idealism that Engels spends so much time criticizing Duhring for, that Roderic so closely inherits, we inherit the scientific socialism of Engels.

It is curious that Roderic accuses us of being Nietzscheans for pointing out the moralism of him and the landback crowd, when it is actually Engels, in the anti-duhring that he references so often, that attacks Duhring precisely on the account of moralism!

“Firstly, he saves himself the trouble of explaining the various forms of distribution which have hitherto existed, their differences and their causes; taken in the lump, they are simply of no account–they rest on oppression, on force. We shall have to deal with this before long. Secondly, he thereby transfers the whole theory of distribution from the sphere of economics to that of morality and law, that is, from the sphere of established material facts to that of more or less vacillating opinions and sentiments. He therefore no longer has any need to investigate or to prove things; he can go on declaiming to his heart's content and demand that the distribution of the products of labour should be regulated, not in accordance with its real causes, but in accordance with what seems ethical and just to him, Herr Dühring.” Engels, Anti-Duhring

It is not that injustices do not exist in capitalism generally, and in America specifically. We have never shied away from the historical tragedies of the United States, nor the modern day oppression experienced by black people, indigenous people, and other minorities in America. It is merely that recognition of these facts are not a replacement for science, and it is not on the basis of morality that one reaches scientific conclusions. As Engels states, “From a scientific standpoint, this appeal to morality and justice does not help us an inch further; moral indignation, however justifiable, cannot serve economic science as an argument, but only as a symptom.” Engels, Anti Duhring.  Before Roderic gives us his fairy tales about what a morally just future for America would look like, it would do him some good to first gain a real and scientific understanding of America’s objective realities, objective realities that no amount of white guilt will alter, transform or make disappear.

Before moving beyond Roderic, it’s important to point out to his readers, how fraudulent he has been. After all this time accusing Infrared of inheriting Duhring, it turns out that it is he himself who has inherited Duhring’s idealism, Duhring’s utopianism, and Duhring’s conflation of moralism with science. For him to reference the anti-duhring, all the while not knowing that this writing was dedicated to drawing a distinction between scientific socialism and his utopian moralism, is a great scandal that should be a cautionary tale for anyone looking up to people like Roderic as figures of authority. 

Addressing R/GenZhou

Recently a post appeared on the educational division of the Genzedong reddit, r/GenZhou. The reddit post makes three main points, that nationalism(which they seem to use as a stand in/replacement for patriotism) is essential for wars of national liberation but the US has no such war, that the claim that patriotism alienates the workers is “erroneous” because of minorities and those who live in US territories, and finally that the US was never a pure and good republic and so like the USSR renounces the old Russia for the new Russia, the US must renounce the old USA for the new America.

Aside from the out of place references to historical materialism, used only to make the argument sound more authoritative and having more to do with a moralistic view of history than a dialectical one, there were also many many other mistakes made in these arguments.

National Liberation

To start with, for preciseness, it’s important to clarify that patriotism and nationalism are not the same thing. We are not of the position that America is a nation-state, or that America as a country is reducible to one nation. Patriotism refers to love for one’s country, not merely one’s nation, and some countries encompass more than just the nation. We’ll be replacing their usage of the term nationalism with patriotism from here on out just to avoid confusion. 

Their first claim, that socialist can only be patriotic in the context of national liberation,  is initially very wrong, and as proven by both the words of Mao and by the actions of the Bolsheviks, to be untrue. 

This can be seen from the often misinterpreted quote by  Mao, “ Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but also must be. The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better.... For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China's case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression. Chinese Communists must therefore combine patriotism with internationalism.”

At the start of the quote,  Mao makes clear, without condition, that Communist who are internationalist must be patriots. He does not claim that it is only in the case of national liberation, or only x, y, case, but claims it as a general truth. Where Mao is often dishonestly interpreted here is when people reference his attack against the “patriotism”  of, “the japanese aggressors and of Hitler.”  However it is clear here that he is not saying that Japanese Communist and German Communist should not be patriots, but quite the opposite, he is claiming that the so-called “patriotism” of Japanese aggressors and of Hitler is NOT patriotism to begin with. This is why he puts it into quotes, to show that he does not regard this as true patriotism. He then goes on to distinguish this from “our patriotism.”  If Mao is saying that Communist who are internationalist must be patriots, and that the “patriotism” of Hitler and the Japanese aggressors is not true patriotism, the logical conclusion of him saying that the Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatist, is that revolutionary defeatism is the true patriotic position. Shockingly similar to the position we have expressed in respect to America.

The next example is the position of the Bolsheviks in the first world war. Lenin evoked love for the great Russian nation and advocated for revolutionary defeatism on this basis. There is no contest being offered on this account. Instead they claim that this revolutionary defeatism was unique to this specific context, and not something to be applied more generally. Instead of elaborating on this, they go ahead to list wars of national liberation,  to no avail and becoming no closer to actually addressing our position on account of it. It is interesting however that they point to the example of the Bolsheviks as unique in their revolutionary defeatism, when it was Mao himself who said that the Japanese and German Communist were revolutionary defeatists and must do all they can to ensure their defeat in WWII. I suppose we are just as guilty as Mao was, in the belief that revolutionary defeatism can be applied to more context than merely Russia in WWI. In fact, implied by the split between the Bolsheviks and the other social democratic parties of Europe, the implication is that these parties should have been revolutionary defeatist as well, and that their decision to support their respective countries in WWI was a grave betrayal of Communism. So it is very odd that this post insist on the idea that revolutionary defeatism is unique merely to Russia.  I’m also curious as to what they offer as an alternative. Is the alternative that one must condemn their country and on this basis be defeatist? And how do they think this will be more effective than those who are revolutionary defeatist precisely on the basis of championing their country, their culture, and their people who too suffer from the adventurist wars of their imperialist leaders? And not only is it a question of effectiveness, how can this be the Communist position? As established earlier, the form of Communism relates at first specifically to a determinate working class, a determinate people ie. the people of one’s own country.

The real scandal here, however, is not only that historically is it not true that Communist have only been patriotic in the context of national liberation, it is also not true today. How is it that one can live in the 21st century, where the most advanced Communist party of the world refers to it’s socialism as Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and still think this has only to do with national liberation? They ignore an entire era of world history, and a great achievement of Chinese socialism, namely the elaboration upon Marx and Stalin, that socialism must be rooted in determinant peoples, civilizations, nations and cultures and see this as merely necessary to combat national oppression. Perhaps, if you want to be generous to their position, you can say that even when China had better relations with the US and was neither at war nor in cold war, because of US unipolarity and global imperialism they were still under a state of oppression. The jump of logic, however, is that socialism with chinese characteristics, and the blatant patriotism of both the Communist Party and of the Chinese people, is merely a response to this, and is instead not a continuation of genuine sentiments that have existed for hundreds of years and a unique world historic development of socialism. It is curious that Chinese intellectuals and the Communist Party of China itself has not reduced it to such, but our enlightened crowd at r/GenZhou feels justified in doing so. As opposed to orientalist fantasies about the victim status of countries where socialist are patriotic, we at Infrared actually humble ourselves before the example of both 20th century and 21st century Communist abroad, and their contributions to socialist history and socialist theory.

Let us see how Jiang Shigong, Chinese Communist philosopher, and advisor of the Communist Party on Hong Kong affairs understands Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, “But the idea of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ means that socialism does not really have a fundamental developmental model, and instead consists of a handful of basic principles and ideas.  These principles and ideas must be continually explored and developed in practice following the advance of time.  ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ is not adding Chinese characteristics to an already defined ‘socialist framework.’ Rather, it uses China’s lived experience to explore and define what, in the final analysis, ‘socialism’ is.  For this reason, ‘socialism’ is not ossified dogma, but instead an open concept awaiting exploration and definition.” (Philosophy and History)

I just find it really curious that when contemporary Chinese Communist elaborate upon Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, they don’t at all argue that it’s basis is purely national oppression, and on the contrary see it as a genuine development of socialism rooted in the Chinese experience. Should American socialist be arrogant and refuse to follow in the example of the more advanced Communist Party of China? Should we refuse to use the unique history of America to contribute to the advancement of socialism generally and it’s rediscovery in America specifically?

It’s interesting that the end of this section of the reddit post claims that our position is solely based in the 20th century experience of socialism(which is an odd criticism, considering the majority of the historical experience accumulated by Communist was in the 20th century), when Socialism with American Characteristics  is perfectly aligned with the era of Xi Jinping and of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

It’s even more interesting that they use the fact that the current state is crumbling under its own contradictions, and its empire falling apart, as a critique of our “20th century” ideas. When would revolutionary defeatism be more effective, than when one’s ruling elite is losing ground and both their state power and their empire is failing? When else would the American people have a more revolutionary significance? If anything, this is the entire point, we are at a unique place in American history, where it is our duty as Communist to lead the American people through the death of their state and the falling of their empire. It is our duty to show the failures of the current establishment and of its imperialist adventurism, and build a base of alternative political power. And it is from love for the country and of her people,  that this duty arises. In short, patriotism.

Alienating Workers(Oppressed Minorities)

The second section of this post claims that we believe that denouncing the USA will alienate the working class. Before we get into their criticisms of this claim it is important to be precise about the distinctions between country and state. 

It is not our claim that the current form of American statehood must be championed, nor that failing to do so will alienate the working class. It is our claim that America as a country, which is distinct from its current form of statehood, must be championed because a country is it’s people and their unique ways of life. So to start with, this is a fallacious argument attacking a self styled strawman of our position.

Another distinction must be made, that is the distinction between America as a country, and American national realities. We do not claim that America is itself a nation, only that it has national realities(including for example the distinct reality of black Americans). In our video, we reference the black belt when talking about the quasi-national realities of the American people.  There is a very basic distinction between country and nation, that somehow all of these educated marxist-leninist fail to see. To use an example, there are some countries like China, where the country and the  super-identity associated with it ie. Chinese, goes beyond the specific nations that exist within in China such as Han, Manchu, Uighur etc. 

In a way that is historically distinct from countries like China, America is also not a nation-state. This is why when Marx says that socialism is national in form, the true insight of this is not limited merely to the level of the nation(which in the context of a nation state, can be more easily swapped with country), but rather that the form of socialism is particular, rather at the level of a nation, a country, or an entire civilization.

So when they say that we put the, “United States as a head above all other nations as an exceptional nation with cultural traditions that go beyond racial and national boundaries.” This is slander, in the first place we never claim that the United States is a nation. In the second place we never speak of patriotism as being unique to only one national group in America(something they seem to take for granted), but as concerning the people of the country generally. In the third place, we acknowledge explicitly the national realities of black Americans and indigenous Americans, and though it is less mentioned in the video, also of Latin Americans. 

Even on this account alone, the second section of this post can be dismissed as slander, falsehood and having no basis in our position. However, there is another distinction I wish to make, the distinction between the barebones of the American Republic and the overgrowth of the American deep state, two party system, military industrial complex, oligarchy and special interest groups. 

While it is not our position, that the current American state must be championed, it is also not our position that it’s purely formal aspects such as the Constitution must be abandoned. We must differentiate this, the purely formal aspects of the American Republic, and it’s aforementioned overgrowth. When r/GenZhou mentions the the United States it collapses all of these distinctions into one.

Unlike in Russia and China, where no formal republic existed prior to revolution, America already has a formal republic and a democratic constitution. Because of this distinction, unlike in Russia and China, where the fundamental foundations and institutions of statehood had to be recreated, the same is not the case in America. Like Engels, we don’t believe that Communist in America must  attempt to get rid of the constitution but instead must wield the constitution against the bourgeoisie in alliance with rural populistic forces. “In America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat – that is, with the agrarian National Reformers.” Engels, The Principles of Communism

Instead, revolution in America must come at the expense of the deep state, the oligarchs, the two party system, the military industrial complex and the American Empire generally, which has no basis in the American constitution. By getting rid of the swamp, we reveal the barebones of the American Republic, paving the way for the proletarian dictatorship which will never again allow the American state to betray the American people. 

Getting these clarifications out of the way, despite that their criticism’s are a complete strawman, we shall still address them even further(as an exercise to thoroughly show their falsehood).

Their argument follows that many of those that denounce the US, are those oppressed by the US ie. national and ethnic minorities within America. The argument continues that we call for these people to fall in line with American patriotism, despite their grievances.

To begin with, the idea that minorities in America have anti-patriotic sentiments, while partially true, is still not representative of the majority opinion even within many of these groups.

As can be seen, 67% of Hispanics take pride in the American flag, and even amongst Black Americans, 59% do. So, even at the most fundamental level, the idea that we are alienating minority workers with our patriotic position is unfounded. That said, it is still self-evident that Black Americans are less likely to be patriotic or even more generally to feel at home in this country. It is also self-evident that Black America has its own distinct national reality. This is why, not only do I support Black nationalism, but the Infrared collective in general has always supported Black nationalism, and Black independent sovereignty should that come to represent the collective will of the Black people.  We also hold the same position in regards to Native Americans. From this it can be seen that the claim that we, “[...]asks imperialised groups and communities to forget the struggles they fought so hard to win, to ignore past atrocities and simply accept the United States[...]” is blatantly not true.

“This white-centric viewpoint is wholly un-Marxist and directly opposed to the principle of National self-determination, a principle we as upholders of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin hold dear!”

By consequence, the above quote is also very silly, considering we have explicitly stated our support for the national self-determination of historically oppressed nations in America. Maybe it has been forgotten, but the actual position we have been debating against was the absurd land back position that there is no uniquely American reality, that natives have sovereignty over all the land of America and so on. We have rejected this claim, not national self determination.

“Not to mention the question of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, American territories in the pacific and Alaska as well, all of which are occupied territories the US has no business in being[...]”

Yet again, baseless lies and slanders. We explicitly in our socialist patriotism video, make distinct the legitimate territorial claims held by the people in American territories, from the general claim that America as a whole belongs entirely only to indigenous people.

Despite that all of these accusations have been based on lies and thin air, I will also add as a response, that black nationalism and American patriotism do not come at each other's expense. While the patriotism of Black nationalist concerns the Black nation and not the American country, as shown by the example of the Black Panther Party it can still find an ally in patriotic Americans(ie. The Young Patriots). According to Jeff Bezos landback leftists it should be a scandal that it was the patriots who allied with the Black Panthers. Before they come to an understanding of this apparent contradiction, they should neither say a word about Black nationalism nor a word about American patriotism.

Lastly, they accuse us of making the American war of Independence unique amongst democratic revolutions. Let us say it is not unique, would that at all hurt the veracity of our arguments and our position on it, which is supported by Marx, Lenin, and Mao amongst others? And, let us continue with the line of thought that it is not unique, would this somehow mean it is not significant in the context of American Communism? They claim that it has no influence on 21st century American revolutionary politics. Insofar as this is true it is precisely the reason why contemporary American “revolutionaries” have been so unsuccessful. If Mao could draw inspiration from Qin Shi Huandi, the first emperor of China and look back thousands of years for wisdom, why is it that American revolutionaries cannot look back a few hundred? Why did 1776 all of a sudden lose revolutionary significance today, when less than a hundred years ago Mao was studying George Washington? It is very odd and arbitrary where they decide to draw the lines.

This was all taking for granted that the American revolution, historically, was in fact not unique and was merely another democratic revolution. There is a great irony here though, one that I’m surprised that they themselves did not see. The American revolution was not merely a bourgeois democratic revolution, it was also the first major modern decolonialist revolution of national liberation. And so all the phrase mongering about national liberation that ultra-leftist do, first gained meaning in the American revolution of independence. It would go on to inspire many other national liberation movements. In that it has been replicated by other countries, it is not unique, in it’s earliness, it is. 

This just goes to show how little these synthetic leftist actually know about phrases such as “national liberation.”

Republic of Illusions

u/Means-of-production concludes his final section of attacks against our video with a shocking display of ignorance and stupidity.

Their basic argument is that because the founding of America and it’s preceding history was impure, it was not a real republic or democracy, and that to insist so would be to reject “historical materialism.” 

I guess I have to be the first to inform this user, but historical materialism is not when you categorize historical epochs based upon their moral purity, nor even their moral consistency. It fundamentally has nothing to do with that. Whether America’s founding fathers truly believed in democracy or not, whether they were personally hypocritical or slave owners, all of these things that they hold to be decisive in a historical materialist understanding of America, has absolutely nothing to do with historical materialism nor even historical significance more generally. 

As opposed to the moralistic view of history, that the character of a historical era is decisively determined by how much states and leaders lived up to their values and ideas, historical materialism is the scientific understanding of history from which one looks at the objective reality and it’s dialectical transformations. This is why Engels in The Principles of Communism(as referenced earlier) claimed that America already had a democratic constitution, and that this constitution should be turned against(not abolished) the elites. This is why Marx and Engels have no problem making an objective distinction between bourgeois democracies(for which initially slave owning was an aspect) and ancient slave societies. And it is in fact, only in the context of modernity and bourgeois democracy, that one can understand the unique barbarism of the enslavement of the black peoples. It is precisely because this revealed an internal contradiction within western modernity, that the contradiction would be later put into motion by Lincoln and the Union army, and that slavery would be abolished. To say that there was only slavery and genocide, and that there was no republic that these things came into contradiction with, completely misses the point. It is precisely on the basis of there being a real republic, that slavery represented an internal contradiction in respect to America in the first place. 

This search for a real republic, beyond what has actually existed in history, is a utopian conception of history not at all scientific. The meaning of being a republic is nothing more than the actual historical experiences of republics, not a mental reconstruction of what a morally consistent republic might be. If they follow this idealistic and utopian logic to it’s ends, these same people will soon start to claim that there has never been a real socialism, due to the contradictions and problems internal to it.

Someone with a materialist view of history can see that it is not that America was “never a republic” but that a republic is itself not a pure self-same category free of contradictions. They can see that the great evil of modern slavery is precisely a contradiction that belongs to the early stage of the development of modern republics. And furthermore, that it is the same democratic ideals upon which republics are founded, that anti-slavery revolutions would themselves also find their basis. In other words, the problem is at the same time the key to it’s solution. This is the historical materialist view, where through internal contradictions, history finds development and revolutionary moments of reconciliation.