Socialist Patriotism: America vs. America

recently there's been a lot of

controversy over the question of

american patriotism

many on the left have a cast stones in

jackson hinkle's direction claiming that

one cannot be both a patriot and a

socialist in america given his origin as

a settler colonialist venture and its

current status as the leading

imperialist power

many have gone so far to claim that as

socialists patriotism represents an

affront to the principle of

internationalism and that socialists who

speak in patriotic terms are both

inconsistent and on the road to red

brownism

in spite of these protestations by the

american left it is clear that there is

something deeply wrong with this

position

the reality of the american people is

not in fact going anywhere and the

anarchistic burn it all down approach

has done nothing but isolate the left

since the 1960s

this begs the question what was the

actual relationship between socialists

and patriotism historically

what becomes immediately clear is that

the track record of the 19th and

especially 20th centuries show that

socialists and communists have

consistently been patriotic and deeply

attuned to the national realities of the

countries they held from the only reason

why the question of patriotism has now

come to the fore is because up until

recently it has been a given an

important effect it is still a given in

the vast majority of countries today

it is only in america and those under

the influence of its empire where those

under this way of american

exceptionalism remain dominant on the

left that socialists imagine they can

elevate themselves above national

realities and speak on behalf of an

abstract working class uprooted and

estranged from its particular and

national instantiation but historically

speaking it is a plain and obvious fact

that communists were always patriotic

and deeply rooted in the national

traditions of their respective countries

marx who spoke of the unity of working

people from all countries states in the

same work that though not in substance

yet in form the struggle of the

proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at

first a national struggle and 27 years

later in his critique of the gother

program marx calls it a self-evident

fact that in order to be able to fight

it all the working class must organize

itself at home as a class with its own

country as the immediate arena of his

struggle although the substantial

meaning is class struggle marx is

abundantly clear that his initial form

is national

linen who advocated for revolutionary

defeatism during the first world war

never considered this position to be at

odds with patriotism on behalf of the

russian people we love our language in

our country and we're doing our very

utmost to raise or turling masses to the

level of democratic and socialist

consciousness

in fact the imperialist war was cast as

an unpatriotic commitment to the

international financiers capitalists and

enemies of the people who dominated the

nation

we are full of a sense of national pride

and for that very reason we particularly

hate our slavers past and our slave is

present where these self-same landed

proprietors aided by the capitalists are

loading us into a war such war only

serves to strengthen the gang of romanos

and brobinskis who are a disgrace to our

great russian national dignity and he

goes on it is impossible to defend the

fatherland otherwise than by using every

revolutionary means to combat the

monarchy the landowners and the

capitalists of one's own fatherland i.e

the worst enemies of our country

mao conversely situated the communist

party in a patriotic people's war

against the japanese aggressors while

mocking the false patriotism of hitler

and the japanese imperialist 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

content of patriotism mao writes is

determined by historical conditions as

mao observed in china the communist

party's patriotism land national

liberation whereas in germany and japan

elaine revolutionary defeatism to bring

about the defeat of the japanese

aggressors and of hitler is in the

interests of the japanese and german

people for their wars are harming the

people at home as well as the people of

the world the same holds universally

true for revolutionaries in cuba vietnam

and across the rest of the world marxist

lindness never advocated on behalf of an

abstract supranational working class nor

did they preach the destruction of their

own nations to berate their own people

for their ostensible backwardness on the

contrary marxist limited parties were

successful for the precise reason that

they could connect with and give body to

the strivings of a concrete and

determinate people other than

superimposing on them foreign and

abstract doctrines as evinced by the ddr

polish people's republic and other

eastern black states this grounding of

the communist parties in the soil of

their own people was not incidental to

their country's involvement in the

process of decolonization the

indisputable fact that communism

invariably assumed a deeply national and

patriotic form is not in fact with a

happenstance but is directly tied up

with the essence of socialism itself

in other words that socialism had

assumed patriotic and national form is

not due to the opportunism of socialists

and communist parties but was part and

parcel to the meaning of socialism

itself

as first stated by marx and later

elaborated upon by stalin and mao

the universal truth of marxism finds

expression only in specific national

characteristics and its acquisition of a

definite national form

as one must begin with the realities

that actually exist and not proceed from

abstractions of the imagination so too

must one first and foremost recognize

the national realities in the land

itself that gives rise to a definite and

historical people

it is only from a recognition of this

premise that what is common between a

people can come to the fore

it is in this way that socialism

discloses a people's living and material

being or what heidegger would call their

historical dazan the meaning of their

history tradition and their cultural

achievements

rather than leave the nation to the

usurpers of the people allowing the

latter's legacy to rot and extravagance

waste and in war socialism means the

revitalization and the reignition of the

people while still remaining faithful to

the same modernity that begs the social

question to begin with

all of this is to say that socialism far

from coming at the expense of the

realities of the people is wrought out

of their particular and national

realities

the principal mistake of western

leftists is to assume an abstractly

negative position with regards to the

peoples nations and history of the world

for these western leftists the essence

of socialism exists in spite of the

concrete sociality or the living being

of a people

they proceed from heaven to earth

whereas marx's materialism proceeds from

earth to heaven

they proceed from empty abstractions

from cosmopolitan man uprooted from his

substantive base whereas marxism teaches

us to proceed from the people as they

actually exist

and despite what the insular pockets of

denationalized american youth think who

exempt themselves from those national

familial and cultural premises not

subject to reason the objectivity of the

nation including its rights rituals and

the national spirit defining a people is

something which communists should strive

to authentically express rather than

ignore

the realities of the nation cannot be

wished away nor cheaply be considered a

spook they must be given new life and

new direction a revival that communists

are tasked with showing is impossible if

not for the overthrow of the decrepit

oligarchical establishment that is as

foreign to the american people as it is

to the countries it occupies

in short the task of communists is not

to alienate themselves from the masses

but to give expression to the

contradiction between the ruling

establishment and the people the

denationalized suburban leftists might

imagine this to be a deeply chauvinistic

and nationalist position

but it is the reactionaries who in fact

share with them a one-sided and idealist

conception of the nation

like the liberal cosmopolitans

reactionaries confuse the outward

appearance of the nation with its

essence which is inexhaustible and

irreducible to its existent form rather

than keeping up with the reality of the

people they restrict the development of

their national being with the weight of

dead abstractions

reactionaries and their idolatry of

surficial appearance are not

sufficiently rooted in the traditions of

their own people

this same idealism permeates the

idolater's corrupted vision of

internationalism a word long since

abused by the post's 60s left

internationalism for the fake and

anti-popular left exists at the expense

of national realities the revolution it

is imagined abolishes borders peoples

and nations all at once on the basis of

their offense to universal reason

justice or other golden idols

that which is irrational is upon being

shown proof of its unreasonableness

bound to disappear into the annals of

history

but as the irony of history shows reason

is cunning what appears irrational is

only the contradiction between

appearance and its own essence it is the

development of the essence of the nation

that proceeds from national premises

itself and that is why for marxists

historically internationalism comes into

being through the nation and

corresponded to a deepening of national

realities rather than their forsaken

meanwhile the synthetic left's position

as a perfected image of american unique

polarity realizes itself in the

liquidation and the wholesale

extermination of the peoples of the

world and it reflects inwardly too

including in it a war on the peoples of

one's own country the abstractly

negative internationalism of western

leftists is nothing less than the photo

negative of american unique polarity it

is this false and abstract universality

that steamrolls the wealth of the

world's peoples identical informed the

relation classical modernity board of

the countries left behind by the west

it is this false notion of

internationalism that is the last

remnant of classical modernity modernity

which is yet to be tempered by contact

with its own material premises the ideal

of a communist world which was made

actual for one half of the earth at one

point in time always meant a fraternity

of nations the internationalist position

far from being the rejection of national

and civilizational realities is the

promotion of win-win and bilateral

cooperation the kind of hearkened by a

multi-polar world whose material

premises are being set as we speak the

internationalist position corresponds to

the resumption of the founding ideal of

america a country free from empire with

as little political connection with

other countries as possible

socialism we've seen has always come out

of love for one's people not of their

crucifixion on the divisive modernity as

trust guides and left-wing fanatics

conceive of it

but many american leftists who may be

comfortable conceding these points will

inevitably claim the following that

america for reasons particular to it

cannot be redeemed that furthermore its

position as imperialist hegemon makes

any socialist patriotism assume a

chauvinistic and imperialist form

while it is a truism of the origins of

the united states lay in the whole cell

slaughter of the indigenous population

this does not diminish the objective

significance of the united states

since its foundations in the chartering

of the declaration of independence from

the british empire the united states had

acquired for itself a real place among

the nations of the world which even if

unique in the intensity and barbarism is

like all nations founded on the basis of

robbery and exploitation and like all

nations it contains within itself the

conditions for redemption

the simple fact of the matter is that

the united states is almost two and a

half centuries old those who presently

inhabit the united states as the white

majority are not settlers or colonists

the birth of the united states has seen

the development of various local and

quasi-national traditions with deep

roots from appalachian americans to the

black belt they have long since become

indigenized and is in fact their

uprooting at the hands of the american

oligarchy that constitutes a

proletarianization of white america

the condemnation of america as a settler

colony thinly disguises the hatred and

repulsion of american leftists towards

their own people it adulterates the

concrete demands of native americans for

more land and more autonomy and twisted

into an impossible position that only

insulated white radicals could stand

behind it elevates the right of

self-determination of puerto rico and

grom into a universal and abstract

negation of all american land in general

an elevation nobody asked for and which

arrives at the laughable absurdity that

the vast majority of those who live work

and reproduce america have no right to

live in it this is why communism has

nothing to do with land back and

everything to do with land reform it is

only in the reparcelation of land as the

most basic means of production that the

productive capacities in entrepreneurial

spirit of the american people can be

unleashed where land back is a feel-good

pipe dream for the overwhelmingly white

american left land reform expresses the

strivings of the populistic and

anti-establishment sentiments of the

majority the vacuous and performative

land-backed position of american leftist

meanwhile bears no organic connection

with the actual claims of american

indians who are used as cannon fodder

for the calvinist left seeking to

extirpate itself of all the sins of its

forefathers the extremity of such a

position can only be made in the minds

of those who are insulated from such

communities and from working people in

general what they channel in fact is

nothing more than their own mental

reconstruction of american indians and

other historically oppressed groups such

mental reconstructions which bear little

resemblance with the realities of black

and indigenous peoples are utilized

solely for the purpose of invoking

feelings of moral superiority in

leveraging this over their peers

the moral economy that land back and

other childish rhetoric rest upon is

thus only for the purpose of saturating

the feelings of guilt felt by a white

leftist the impossibility of these

demands is clear to all parties

including themselves and as a matter of

strategy such extremist positions will

never win over the american masses not

even her non-white sections as their

periodical finger-pointing distances

them more and more from the american

people strategically it is a

non-position which is why j sakai

leftists never have and never will pose

a threat to the existing establishment

and are in practice the radical left

flank of actually existing white

supremacy communists do not win by

opposing everything the american people

find sacred a childish and anarchistic

position they do not win with a burn it

all down attitude communists will win by

fighting for american working people

giving them recognition in their words

and in their deeds and promoting the

prosperity and dignity of america's

working masses that one finds pride in

their country and love for her people is

in no way irreconcilable with making

good on the promise of 40 acres in a

mule nor does it renewal the necessity

of recompense and dialogue with tribal

authorities in the increased autonomy

that socialist reconstruction would give

way to on the contrary it is a

precondition for these things as

patriotic sentiment is the surest sign

that one is connected with and fights on

behalf of the masses the reality is that

land backed leftists who screech bemoan

the fact of america's existence do the

work of the right by poisoning the well

with all sorts of unjustifiable and

impossible demands that they themselves

don't believe and whether they are aware

of it or not these same people open the

door to the exact claims being levied

against the people's republic of china

and to a lesser extent russia another

convenient coincidence where radical

liberal discourse mysteriously aligns

with u.s imperialism

but the confusion of such people over

land back which can never be a communist

demand pales in comparison with the

chief stupidity of american leftists

which is that working people in the

advanced countries are incapable of

acting in a revolutionary way

such stupidity is refuted not only by a

look at history but is even denied by

the same authorities that moused larpers

claimed descend from

lenin in his letter to the american

working people lauded the war the

american people waged against the

british robbers who oppressed america

and held in colonial slavery

unsurprisingly more attuned to the

realities of america than most western

students of lenin he also did not

hesitate to point out the continuity

between the war for independence and

communism the american people have a

revolutionary tradition which has been

adopted by the best representatives of

the american proletariat

namely that tradition which is the war

of liberation against the british in the

18th century in the civil war in the

19th

mal leading a country directly

threatened by u.s imperialism would at

the same time posthumously ratified

george washington a communist referring

to both washington and lincoln as

progressive men of their time

far from land back virtue signaling or

condemning the white working classes

settler colonialists it would state that

now the american people need to struggle

for liberation from their own monopoly

capitalists

if marx lenin and mao among numerous

others saw in america's history a world

historic and revolutionary tradition

then how could american communists not

see the same if communist with no ties

to america can respect the legacy of

1776 then what clowns would one be to

discard it and curse it as an original

sin what message does it send to the

people when the institutions of the

establishment seem to concur with the

liquidationism of the american left as

the proletarian class struggle is always

particularly indeterminate it is clear

that a socialism arising from the soil

of america will take the form of

something profoundly and deeply american

that socialism in america will have

american characteristics

what's more is that by assuming it is

only the eastern proletariat that is

capable of attaining a revolutionary

character so-called maoists in america

commit the inverse era of western social

democrats of the early 20th century both

sharing a lack of dialectical thinking

they assume that america and her people

are an exception they might label

socialism with american characteristics

browderism but it is in fact they who

are the browders if only inversely for

they in the words of stalin imagine

america to be exempt from the laws of

history

the fact of the matter is that for all

we can save its founding america has a

mighty and authentically progressive

tradition that has been present from the

beginning the war for independence threw

off the imperial yoke and founded a

republic that for the first time base

itself in the same enlightenment ideals

that would be weaponized into

forthcoming anti-slavery crusade and the

struggle against european colonialism

worldwide the civil war whose world

historic repercussions did not go

unobserved by marx was at the same time

a deeply national war against the

british imperialists who threw their

support behind the confederacy and as

marx would observe from the commencement

of the titanic american strife the

working men of europe felt instinctively

that the star-spangled banner carried

the destiny of their class

it was under this banner that the

oligarchy of 300 000 slaveholders was

vanquished by abraham lincoln the

single-minded son of the working class

from the farmers alliance and the

populist party to the role played by the

labor unions and the communists of the

1930s america has hosted a long gallery

of heroic struggles which have gone on

to be appreciated by marxist leninists

around the world

and this gallery has extended up into

the present

as the populist tide threatens up in the

security obsessed elite socialists are

in a unique position to play a profound

role in the rejuvenation of the american

people popular demands for medicare for

all suspicion over the designs of big

pharma and the intrusions of big tech

the arrogance and the hypocrisy of the

establishment these are all demands that

are ripe for leadership but with the

american left so estranged from the

people with its voices dominated by

lumpin elements so infantile and

explicitly hostile to the very existence

who are the good people of america to

turn to except pivoting endlessly

between two parties of the same

establishment

rather than patriotically fighting for

what is near and dear to the people

self-proclaimed socialists are either

aloof from or spit vitriol in the

direction of america's working masses

such people are complicit with the

ruling establishment indeed they are its

leftist flank

western leftists make the mistake of

opposing what is good to what is real

whereas for dialectical materialists

reconciliation means finding the good in

the real

it is no coincidence then the decline of

the american empire

coincides with the awakening of the

american people and their own war

against it and that civilizational

reconstruction of the americas can only

come from reclaiming the american

republic from the american empire

as linen understood a revolutionary

defeatism to be the truly patriotic

stance of world war one so too is

anti-imperialism the highest form of

american patriotism another

long-standing american tradition

seemingly lost by leftists today

the proof of the pudding is in the

eating

that the patriotism of america's

neoconservatives has only mounted to

bloodshed restriction of civil liberties

deindustrialization and civilizational

decline shows that it was a false

patriotism all along

communists in america should not exempt

themselves from world history nor should

they be afraid to cut ties with a

synthetic left that will inevitably

scold it for pandering to refuse

american exceptionalism is to claim the

american flag as the people's flag

lester remain in the hands of those who

betray the masses selling the daughters

of american to prostitution and its sons

into destitution that the flag remains

in the hands of fake conservatives is

only because the left has proven too

impotent and too weak to claim it for

themselves

time-honored wisdom tells us to remove

the splinter from one's own eye before

criticizing that communists have made no

headway in america for the past 60 years

is not because the american people are

too ignorant but because the left has

been dominated by fanatical and

anti-popular elements

socialists have never won power by

scolding their people and trampling upon

every sacred institution dear to their

heart the task of communists is not to

moralize into shame but to relate to the

concrete realities of the american

people to forge a party that is capable

of acting as a tribune for the people

from which it is cultivated it is only

in this way that the false patriots can

be overthrown the enemies of the people

routed in popular sovereignty

established it is by failing to act as

patriots and by being unique in

condemning their own people that

american leftists set themselves apart

from communists and socialists around

the world they are american

exceptionalists part excellence american

socialist patriotism meanwhile correctly

charts the stalinist golden middle

so what is the concrete meaning of

american patriotism it will be found in

a new separation from the moribund

british empire and its international

liberalism in the refoundation of the

american republic and alliance with the

brics nations and civilizational renewal

through a program of land reform and

reindustrialization

socialism with american characteristics

will be found in reclaiming sovereignty

from the empire the oligarchs inherited

from the british rather than forsaking

the masses from which it was born

socialism in america means reclaiming

the story and the flag of america it

means assuming leadership of its working

people and acting in both words and in

deeds in continuity with traditions of

the united states

making good on its promise of republic

of by and for the people

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me

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