I’ve been seeing a bad line of thinking in leftist spaces and in myself and I feel the need to call it out.
The western left’s demonization of the class unconscious proletariat is a symptom of idealism that seems sadly acceptable in leftist social media spaces. Class consciousness is not an achievement to be proud of, you didn’t do it, it happened to you.
Labor aristocracy is not a “sin” of the western working class it is a weapon of the bourgeoisie. Unique material conditions are what lead each of us to class consciousness not some sort of moral/intellectual/educational supremacy. The limited class consciousness in the west’s working class is not an inherit flaw in the masses but a failure of the class conscious to conduct effective agitation. (the word “failure” is not a condemnation but recognition that we have been unable to succeed against the overwhelming power of the imperialist bourgeoisie.)
This extends to demonization of the troops. Yes members of the western armed forces actively benefit from imperialism and do horrific things supporting imperialism but they do this out of a response to their material conditions not because they are evil. That is not to say they are absolved of their crimes. It means many of them could be redeemable.
We have all had liberal and imperialist ideas that we now recognize are wrong. We must be willing to accept those who admit the faults of their past who are willing to fight for a better future. Anyone refusing to forgive comrades who admit to a flawed past is being dishonest about their own flaws. They are engaging in ideological moral supremacy. It is not a dialectical materialists position to refuse something changing into its opposite.
Again this is not a call to absolve the complicit but instead a call to remind us that we have all been complicit in some way and we are the proletariat not above them.
There isn’t an easy way to say this that will not sound like an attack, so let’s just rip the band aid off.
Nah, fuck PSL. (Btw most of your post was moralism; arguing for or against how liable a person is for their actions is not what allows us to decide revolutionary potential of any given class)
Let’s take an example.
You’re in Germany in the early-mid 20th century and you would like to take down the Nazi government and the way we are going to go about this is we are going to do this to use a Nazi veteran who is sorry about the war crimes he was involved in. The idea is by appealing to Nazi society who we think will be persuaded to ultimately take down Nazi governance by being convinced by the rhetoric of this Nazi soldier who we hope they consider an authorative voice given that (1) he’s a nazi (2) he’s a soldier.
Has the above idealism worked ever in history or you know, did we need to raise a massive advanced bolshevik army to defeat the nazis? Would you understand why the above would be considered idealism and ahistorical?
Now consider this: USAmerican soldiers, by every reasonably considerable metric, are significantly worse than Nazis. Heck, if we are putting up numbers liberals have killed way more than fascists - fascism is inherenrly shortlived and unstable needing non-communists to collaborate with communists to take them down, where as liberals can continue with killing for longer as they create more stablity domestically and with the comprador classes abroad.
The moralism justified in using veterans in the US (an imperial supercore of which global hegemony tilts towards till late, ie the consolidation of all sub imperialisms) can be juxtaposed by the moralism a marxist might then take against the US soldier; the reality of the material conditons of what produces veterans and the material conditions of using veterans in a veteran-honoring-society.
(Moralism and identarianism is part of the human condition, marxism is what hones our lance and point it in the right direction. We may de-emphasise the moralism is in marxism so that the moralism of the marxist can be guided by the science and serve towards the dictatorship of the proleteriat: https://redsails.org/on-identitarianism-a-defense-of-a-strawman/ )
A lot of the most famous marxists betrayed the relative class positions and aspirations but the revolutionary potential is towards the science of wielding marxism - the effort in using veterans as a class would be more useful in actually finding revolutionary classes - in the US this may involve the lumpenproleteriat and migrant populations where the downfall of US imperialism and the dissolution of the US project is in their material interests.
(If you want to convert veterans to marxists so they form a large enough group to take down the fascist military from within, well then that’s an underground movement and you’re not advertising veteran support because the above is essentially anti-veteran. And even then actually successful coups in the direction of socialism (ie not another bourgoisie take over) came from the masses from which some veterans fell in line - it was not tailism)
I sort of get your argument but I also don’t get the historical comparison used because as far as I can tell, it’s more uncharted territory than you make it sound. For example:
The USSR was not created as a response to Nazism in order to fight Nazis. No doubt, it was the primary military force that fought and ultimately defeated Nazi Germany. But it wasn’t like Nazi Germany was this established thing, known for genocide, and Lenin was trying to figure out how to fight it, so the working class took over a different, adjoining region specifically to fight Nazi Germany.
For parallels, it may be more insightful to go back and look at Rome or something, but I don’t know much about Rome’s history in general. Just that from the standpoint of looking at downfall of empires, that may be more of a clue as to precedent when it comes to internal collapse and changing of power.
The other point I want to make is that if, in this analogy, US soldiers are like Nazi soldiers (or worse), what does that make the rest of us who live in the imperial core? People who, whether we participate in the maintenance of the machine or not, don’t pull out all the stops we can trying to break it? This, I think, is the main “moral supremacy” point that the OP was trying to make with:
Or if it wasn’t intended that way, I will make it myself: Just how far removed from participating in the oppression are we? (I’m sure some here are among the more marginalized, but not all.) Should the revolution only recruit from and aim for the most marginalized? I don’t think that’s a bad idea as material analysis goes, it’s just, that’s a minority of people in the region who has already sacrificed a lot struggling for basic not-being-immediately-murdered-over-nothing (which still isn’t a solid thing).
Why does it need to be one or the other is the other place my mind goes. I’m aware there have been betrayals in the past, which is why it’s so important to keep an eye out for the patsoc types and the opportunists who are looking to improve their own QOL a bit via reforms and then stop there. But like, if there’s somebody who is ready and willing to put themself in the line of fire for marginalized peoples, why get shy about that? Marginalized peoples are not perfect victims. Their material interests are more aligned with the cause, but their knowledge and experience isn’t de facto ready for revolution. So to this question:
Exclusively? Very little. Maybe the only exclusive thing would be being able to potentially provide insight into how the US military is trained to fight if they are a recent veteran. However, assets are assets, provided we are not confusing help with “taking over.” Putting lots of energy into recruiting veterans though? I would agree that’s not a good place to put energy. Not if it’s at the cost of recruiting from the most marginalized.
To clarify:
Demonization is moral absolutism. It is to brand someone with a supernatural evil status to justify treating them as “the other.” It is dehumanization.
There is nothing magical about gaining class consciousness that makes you fundamentally better than the people who have not. Having better morality does not make you a superior type of human. If you approach the proletariat with the intention of “saving” them like a missionary would you are not helping the cause. It is just another form of the “white savior” complex.
I want every imperialist soldier to cease to be. If I could snap and they would all die I wouldn’t hesitate. I don’t want them to die because they are “evil” or because they need to be punished for their crimes. I want them to cease being because it would further the cause of communism.
Punishment, Evil, Demonization, Othering these are all reactionary, idealist nonsense.
Moralism comes from material conditions.
Arguing for anti-moralism is not the same as an argument whether or not to support these western veterans from a marxist perspective.
How does one understand the revolutionary potential of a given class? By doing class analysis; understanding the relation to property. The primary global contradiction is imperialism and the US is the imperial core. Imperialism is class relationship of protecting and gaining private property against Global South proleteriat.
Let’s consider it from a different perspective. Let’s imagine there was no military industrial complex in the US as we know it now ie all state owned. Would that army’s relationship as a whole to imperialism change? Ie what is the purpose of the army? It is there to help subsidise the lives of the USAmerican proleteriat + bourgoisie + petite-bourgoisie through imperialist extraction; it is this relationship that is centre of whether veterans have revolutionary potential or not, it is to consider what is their role is in these material conditions, how they benefit from it and any moralism has a whole comes secondary to this.
In this context for the imperial core bourgoisie proleteriat you have to consider how and whether you are going to make the case that your project in the short term will offer them better material condtions than one provided by imperialism (challenging to put it mildly).
That is how you step away from idealism and towards dialectical materialism and a deeper class analysis. The PSL have not done so because their material conditions as bourgoisie proleteriat has led them to the ideas they have now.
Ironically your anti-moralism in this context is moralism (crude analogy: “colour blindness” in a response to racism), which is partly why I am not saying your argument is bad because of moralism; rather I am leaning into it but suggesting that moralism should be guided by the science instead.
You’ve missed the point. The post is not for or against judging peoples morality. It is about understanding that morality is learned. It is a product of material conditions. So having superior morality does not make an Ubermench. Just like how a person who has good education or health isn’t superior to someone who is uneducated or has health issues.
Labor aristocrats aren’t inferior to colonized peoples just because they get crumbs from imperialism. People are people. We all have blind spots and shortcomings but if we decide that some of faults are so bad we can deny there is a human underneath that is idealism not materialism. I’m not saying we should overlook faulty morality but we need to analyze it through a materialist lens.
Historically most petite bougies side with capital in revolutions despite the fact that they have more to gain under socialism. In the age of mega-stores, corporate monopolies and farming cartels there is no reason that we can’t change that by winning the propaganda battle … but leftists love to demonize the petite bougies. They’ve written them off because owning a small business is a mortal sin and having employees is unforgivable. It is an idealistic stance that is detrimental.
Dialectical materialism requires reappraisals as conditions are constantly changing. Demonization and supremacist thinking is a calcification of thought.
What in all of that allows to determine revolutionary potential? The supposed subjective inferiority/superiority inferred is besides the point; I am saying all that is secondary to material conditions - our subjective value judgement may be consequence of our relationships with all this but it is not the primary reason to determine anybody revolutionary potential from a marxist perspective.
Put it bluntly, what is the material analysis for the revolutionary potential for US Veterans? What relation to property have you concluded to make the case?
That is not what the post is about. I don’t know how else to say this.
The post is about the tendency for some leftists to think their shit doesn’t stink because they have found Marx and Lenin. The belief that because they lucked out to be in the right places at the right times for communist agitation to have taken hold in their minds that they are the chosen ones. Supposed Communists who say “liberal” like a Proud Boy says “deg_n_rate” or say “troops” the way the kkk say “n___ers.”
If you don’t make the case then you don’t have a case and everything you said will then be apolgism for US Veteran support without a scientific basis.
Getting indignated on the completely human response to these war criminals without making the materialist case we should supercede it is just moralism by another name. There is no neutrality about good or evil, or lack of morals or not; we determine all these things by praxis - we are not above it all.
You’re asking for a supposed scientific neutrality to analysis where none such exists. And you can’t even give the case why all this supposed effort is even worth it.
This stuff is obvious even without marxism. It is only confounding because of the class position as a westerner.
You keep hearing things I’m not saying. More words are not going to help. I give up.