Revolutionary Retreat: Strategic Implications of the Imperialist Elections

The Communists must begin to prepare for the possibility that the Financial Bourgeoise that currently control the State Apparatus may install Harris as president against the will of the voters. We should regard it as likely that they will at least attempt to do this for two primary reasons. First that the Soft Coup against Biden shows the Financial Imperialists will violate their own customs and norms to conduct the Class War from their side; the ultimate determining factor behind their actions is the degree to which they collevtively see economic benefit from it. They are growing desperate enough to begin shedding some of the pretenses of democracy and rule more nakedly; the Imperialists are less and less restrained by their fear of provoking the Masses the closer we get to a Revolutionary Crisis.

Second is the assasination attempt against Trump, which has become obvious that it required at least the tacit approval of the Imperialist State to have occured. The series of events necessary for the shooter to be in possition to pull the trigger break the plausibility of coincidence, and a rational analysis of the events forces us to conclude that the Imperialist State allowed this to occur even if it was not necessarily a knowing agent of the Financial Bourgeoise behind the scope. From this we can conclude that the Finincial Bourgeoise are desperate enough that they accept at least the plausibility of open insurrection as a consequence of their actions, as long as it does not represent a Class Revolution.

The Long March of 1934

The Imperialists have no intention of fighting a fair fight; this has been reflected in every foreign policy decision they make, their own activities at home, and by the world history of Class Rule in decline; from Ancient Egypt through today, the ruling classes have been ready and willing to violate their own laws if it means maintaining control over society. It would be extrodinarily foolish to make our own calculations on the assumption that they will fight fair, and would squander all of the gains we have made in the Class War up to this point. Specifically in the struggle against Imperialism, we are on the verge of being able to dictate terms to and force engagements with the Financial Capitalists; we are on the verge of becoming strong enough that the Masses can target specific examples of Imperialist actions and force a retreat. This is true even though the Communists and their organizations are not in the Strategic Initiative in the Class War, and have not even reached Strategic Equalibrium; however we are not at that point yet, and mistakes can still be extrodinarily expensive, and damaging to both the Anti-Imperialist United Front, and the Communists. We therefore must seriously plan for this possibility, even if it does not become a reality.

We have previously been acting on the assumption that Trump will win the election, and expose the MAGA movement as impotent to defend the Working Class. Just like Joe Biden’s presidency has given us enormous opportunities to make advances on our Right Flank, simply because he has exposed contradictions on the Right in their responses to Imperialist actions, we assumed a Trump presidency would give us similar opportunity to advance on the Left Flank. However if the Financial Imperialists win in the election, this won’t be the case; the Left’s opposition to the Communists will continue to intensify because of our rejection of the Culture War that defines their cultural-political identity. The Financial Bourgeoise will continue to control the State Apparatus that lets them target the contradictions within the lower levels of Capital, provoking the Industrial Bourgeoise to ever greater Reaction, while shielding their own, and maintain the ability to target dissenters against Imperialism. We should see situations where the Imperialists make extreme decisions such sacraficing their own smaller Industrial Bourgeoise, just as the German Idustrial Bourgeoise’s interests were sacrificed to facilitate the economic front of NATO’s war with Russia, as being more likely as they grow more desperate. These kinds of actions widen the split between the two branches of Capital, and turn the Industrial and Petite Bourgeoise against Imperialism even while they try to maintain their Capitalist Class rule over society, and undermine their lawfare by provoking a large segment of the Bourgeoise itself into resisting Imperialism. Even if we are not in a position to openly challenge an Imperialist coup d’etat, the split between the branches of Capital will open opportunities for us to make counter-attacks.

Additionally, the Right will not be forced to confront the reality of its own internal policy failings and the class nature of its political leaders, and the MAGA movement will persist in political relevancy based on the myth of “what if Trump had won”. While the Imperialists were able to rally enough of the workers around a leftist cause of defeating Trump to win in 2020, the harm they’ve done to the Workers through their policy has alienated them so far that the Imperialists are no longer confident they can win. We reasonably expected the same phenomenon to happen with Trump and the Right, though this will no longer be the case if the Imperialists win. The Communists will be forced to adapt our practicies and programs to this objective reality; the Leftists will continue to be the main auxilliary force the Imperialist Bourgeoise uses in its war against the Working Class, and they will use the same toolset we have encountered before. While the State may still keep a handhold in the right through the “groyper” section of the Petite Bourgeoise and Labor Aristocracy, we should regard it as a “force in being”, where its primary utility is in the threat of its use, rather than its acutal ability to influence the social discourse or balance of military forces. The militants in the Reactionary Right exist in a precarious position where they and their Industrial Capitalist backers are in opposition to the ruling Imperialist faction. They are therefore only useful to the Imperialists in the degree to which they are able to cause disruption in the Anti-Imperialist United Front, or to isolate the Petite Bourgeoise from the Masses, which may or may not be concurrent objectives depending on how resistive the Industrial Capitalists become. If they are allowed to become too effective, they begin to pose a legitimate threat to the Imperialists themselves, and without this effective backing of the State, the Working Class Anti-Imperialists will be able to isolate and destroy them if they come to the surface. The primary threat to the Mass Movement comes from the timing of their deployment in concert with other threats from the Imperialists, rather than posing an objective threat in isolation; if employed without support, this reactionary section of the Right would be destroyed quickly and do little damage, but can force the Workers to divert critical forces away from the Imperialists themselves and expose us to other operational threats.

We must then be prepared for a period of time where we are not able to take the offensive in any major way because of objective external conditions, even though we might otherwise have a favorable balance of forces. The Groypers will almost certainly be kept in reserve, ready to disrupt the Anti-Imperialists or the Industrial Capitalists if either of our operations become too effective during the vulnerable period while the Financial Bourgeoise are consolidating power after a coup. While they may become more active in the leadup to the elections, in an effort to provoke and rally a flagging Left, it would be an operational mistake to see this as the many body of their forces; they are embeded deeper than a few protesters and memers, and we have seen no evidence of a strategic shift which would allow the militant reactionaries to replace the Left counter-gangs as the main proxy force of the State within the Imperialist’s overall force structure.

Our objective should be to defend the progress we’ve made thus far while the Imperialists make their attacks, and if necessary to retreat in good order, preserving as much of our organizational structures as possible to continue the fight under more favorable conditions. This makes joining with the Masses an immediate necessity, as they are the only place most of us are equipped to hide if the State ever begins open use of military force against its own people, as happened in the Ukranian purges and pogroms after the 2014 coup. Just as the Bolsheviks had to undergo a period of retreat after the 1905 Revolution, and were able to lead the Workers and Peasants because their organizations were those who were best able to retreat, and maintain a cohesive fighting force against Czarist and Bourgeoise Imperialism. Just like the Bolsheviks, and the Chinese Communists, one of the lessons we will have to learn is how to retreat.

U.S. Troops withdrawing from Afghanistan, c.April 2021

During this period, it is also important to clearly and fully illustrate a Marxist analysis of the impact of Imperial, Colonial and National relations on our internal Class relations. Eventually the Imperialists’ new series of offensive operations will bring more cracks to the surface, and we will have a new wave of opportunities to mount our counter-attacks against their Cognitive and Informational Warfare objectives, as well as our own offensives against key contradictions within the Bourgeoise State, which will be clarified by our analysis of the internal contradictions within the United States’ national and class structure.

In the United States in particular, its necessary to understand that the contradictions between the Finiancial and Industrial Bourgeoise, between the Settlers and the other Nations of people within the United States, and between the different proto-nations of Settlers all play into the overall balance of forces. While the Class nature of its society is still the primary factor, it is not the only factor, and in cases where these other contradictions are intensified, it may be sufficient to tip a group over to one side or the other. The Leftists are also likely to continue their attacks against the Anti-Imperialists along these avenues, as they have consistently done since the Panthers’ collapse in the 70’s and the formation of the New Left, and if the Leftists continue to serve as the main proxy force of the State, we should position ourselves as much as possible to take advantage of their own internal contradictions.

The reality that the Communists must reckon with is that the contradiction of Imperialism will likely reach its breaking point before the internal Class Contradictions of Capitalist society. Because of this, objective, world-historical conditions may even push the course of events to a Bourgeois Civil War before it pushes us to Workers Revolution. Its possible that the Industrial Bourgeoise can marshall enough resources to take State Power from the Financial Bourgeoise by force if they should misjudge the situation or make tactical mistakes and unintentionally precipitate a conflict between the branches of Capital. We need to remember the lessons from the Russian Revolutions, and I explicitly mean Revolutions in the plural; the Worker’s Revolution was the 3rd Revolution that Russia faced in this era, but the Marxists played substantial roles in the previous two. The Ultra-Leftists like to behave like anything short of total, absolute victory for only the Leftist elements of the Proletariat is a complete failure for the Class War, and brings permenant defeat, but history shows how wrong-headed this is.

The defeated Revolutions in Germany, Hungary, Italy, the only partial success of the February Revolution, and the conditional victory of the Second United Front shows us both that total victory isn’t a guaranteed outcome, nor is it a moral compromise for the Marxists to make what whatever progress is possible if they do not have conditions for a decisive victory in Class Revolution. It shows us that Bourgeois Class elements will remain within society after a Proletarian Revolution, even if they don’t hold State Power. Revolutionary Morality, as explained by Ho Chi Minh, is whatever is necessary for the historical Class Revolution of the workers, the Industrial Proletariat. This is the case because every social ill within society is ultimately based within the economic structure of that class-society itself. This is the economic history of Mankind, or paraphrasing Marx, “All of history is the Class Struggle”.

The Marxists therefore need to understand that we may see a period analgous to the period of Dual Power in Russia, or to the Second United Front in China, where we are forced to cooperate with our adversaries on a temporary and conditional basis, or be defeated entirely. It would be a mistake to take this as a foregone conclusion, but we must begin preparing ourselves to make these kinds of calculations, and to begin preparing ourselves and our organizations to conduct the kinds of political work a Bourgeoise Civil War would demand of us, and for the eventuality that this would inevetably bring us into direct conflict with the Industrial Bourgeoise if they should win.

It could also be the case that, as the lower levels of Capital alienate the masses in the course of the Civil War, that we are compelled to immediately carry this through into a Class Revolution, as was the case with China. How specifically we would be forced to act depends on how the chips should fall, and the overall balance of forces and their disposition at the conclusion of such a Civil War. However even if events do not reach such a sharp conflict, it is undeniable that a victory for the Financial Imperialists will keep Imperialism centered as the main contradiction impacting the Masses, and that regardless of how the specific course of events procedes, our strategy at this stage in the Class War must stay in uniting the Masses against the Imperialists. However we should also stay vigilant for opportunities which our growing abilities will allow us to target without slowing our strategic progress.

We see it as vital that the Marxists remain flexible, and actively apply the laws of the Dialectical method to the conditions we find, and to use this method to chart our course. The Class Struggle is transitioning to a stage where we are forced to conduct our campaign in a serious and organized manner, and to become Marxists in our own right, rather than parroting theory developed in other places and in other times. Our forces are at a critical stage of development, and mistakes made out of laziness or dogmatism could prove very costly during this period where the Imperialists are mounting a new series of attacks, and we haven't yet fully joined with the Masses. If we correctly address these obstacles, we will emerge from the other side enormously strengthened and ready to challenge the Bourgeoisie in the next stage of the Class War, but we can only do this by using Dialectics to light the way for the Masses.