I have recently been interested in organizing more (outside of animal rights and anti-racism) and was looking to join a communist org. Unfortunately the choice for these kind of movements is incredibly limited where I live. I found a trot org that is linked to IMT near me and was willing to give them a chance as choice is limited.
After reading their manifesto, I think I won’t bother… Here’s a translation of some paragraphs.
Our position is very simple: in every struggle, we always take the side of the oppressed against the oppressors. But this general position is not precise enough. We must add that our position is essentially negative. This means that we are opposed to all forms of oppression and discrimination - whether they target women, people of color, homosexuals, transgender people or any other minority.
However, we firmly and categorically reject “identity” politics which, under the pretext of defending the rights of this or that group, play a reactionary role, dividing the working class, weakening its unity and providing invaluable aid to the ruling class.
The labor movement has been contaminated by a whole series of ideas that were alien to it. Postmodernism, identity politics, “political correctness” and other oddities have been smuggled in from the universities by the “left” petty bourgeoisie, who act as a conveyor belt for reactionary ideas alien to the working class.
Stemming from “postmodernism”, identity politics have confused the brains of many students. But these ideas have also been introduced into the workers’ movement, where they are used as weapons by the bureaucracy to combat the most resolute militants.
They have a whole FAQ section dedicated to how inclusive writing is wrong because it divides the working class ffs.
a trot org
I’m not that familiar with trots, but I would hope they are not all reactionnary shitheads. Still I was getting excited of having a leftist org near me… Guess I’ll take the advice of looking for a remote org as I don’t have the energy to start an org at the moment.
Trot orgs aren’t really known for being reactionary shitheads, they’re more known for having bad ideas about AES and for forming splitter orgs at the drop of a hat. Of course all the splitter orgs have to have different opinions on something or another, so they’ve each gotta have one bizarre take or another.
They’re also known for making newspapers, of course.
Some aren’t, but a lot have one or two things they have a bizarrely awful takes on. And I don’t mean disagreements over history, theory or praxis (for example, wsws defending people like Harvey Weinstein as “witch hunt” victims).
I am in a trot org and it’s very good about minorities. I presented a talk about trans lives vs the far right in my country and it was very well received.
Nice to hear your talk went well :)
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That’s exactly how I felt reading it lmao!
This is something Jordan Peterson would write if he decided to LARP as a leftist instead of a Tradcath.
Peterson and many communist org have approximately the same relation to and misunderstanding of postmodernism lmao
I always associated post modernism with a rejection of large scale historical/ideological narratives (barring ofc the unspoken capitalist one). Tbh I don’t know a lot about it, but is that not the case?
Yes, but it’s more than that. Excuse my rant below because I have a soft spot for this lol.
The “postmodernists” developed these ideas through a critique of capitalism, liberalism, colonialism, racism, sexism, etc. The rejection of grand narratives in theory was importantly an attack on these systems we oppose. Liberalism is the dominant grand narrative about the world which was/is used for uncountable crimes and continued existence, even as that narrative itself lost the plot long ago. This is why a lot of the “postmodern” authors were also readers of Marx. Marxists should question grand narratives about the world and people within it, even if that means we have to be critical of our own narratives.
The problem some communist orgs seem to have is a conflation of the “postmodernists” (by who they mean poststructuralists, etc.) and postmodernism as a defining logic within late capitalism. This is the same problem Peterson has. He literally doesn’t even know what the words mean or who believes what, and neither do certain communist orgs. Like sure, be critical of the post structuralists, clearly their ideas were easily recuperated into the academy etc, but actually engage with it at least. I find orgs which use that term in such a hand waving way are just using it as a smoke screen to say they don’t like gender studies and intersectionalism (both having their own relation to this trajectory in theory, and good criticism from a Marxist perspective), but generally not for good reasons. Which this org is clearly saying, but others less intentionally so.
The other important part is the relation to history. Postmodernism (read: global capital/spectacle/etc) treats history like its a grab bag of aesthetics to mishmash and sell again as a “new” commodity. In this sense everything loses its historical significance, its just aesthetics. It becomes a play, a simulation, kitsch, or a pastiche. But this also changes the way people inevitably see themselves within history, or whether they possess the capacity for effecting historical change at all. When everything appears to lose its historical character, the possibility for political change also seems impossible. In other terms, it’s the superstructure reinforcing the base (global capitalism).
This peculiar relation to history is a problem for political organizing. Some left organizing may feel like it falls flat because of this postmodern grinder we find ourselves in. Where red aesthetics have already been eaten and spit back out by capital. Like it’s hard for me to read the above excerpt and not just read it as an anachronistic larp. I’ve seen even good communist orgs put out some absolutely silly communiques written in a language that chatgpt could spit out if you asked it for “communist declarative article”. (chat gpt is a good example of an invention which is deeply tied to both postmodernism in how it chews up language and without context spits it back out, and to the legacy of eugenics–the modernist triumph of statistics controlled by racists aka the ruling class.)
Jameson’s book Postmodernism, Or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism is a great place to start. Just the first chapter is honestly enough.
Thank you for the info this is a very nice write up
Yeah…
The org I’m in allows “remote” members to an extent. We’re in a huge state (takes like 14 hours to drive across), so just based on pure logistics we have local members who do day to day shit irl, and we have further afield folks who we only see once in a while but who help out with admin stuff, or designing posters or making social media designs or whatever. Might be worth looking into if there’s something similar you could join.
That’s actually not a bad idea, I might look into it thanks!
I am sure there is a rich history of why this movement split from the ICFI. Or whatever, one split first decades ago.
I have even expressed a desire to exist quietly but with legal protections. I tolerate people’s bile around me to survive. But it’s a dead-end. Bigots are narcissists who can never be co-opted into delivering socialism. Self-serving imperialist social democracy, no doubt, but they will demand countless unnecessary human sacrifices for it.
You are in an all-important minority whose impact must be felt. Start your own org, no matter how futile it feels.
Ironic how “not splitting up the working class” is their reasoning for allowing bigots into their org, and now they clearly just split the working class by letting these bigots in at the expense of minority group members. Best move for any functioning organization is to always keep bigots out, just game theory proves it. 1 bigot in the group - potentially many minority groups leave. Net loss in members. Too risky, even capitalist companies figured this out and some of these companies are going to shoot themselves in the foot by letting them in now that anti woke is vogue.
Those people that join are going to become tomorrow cons. So many where trots in the past as it is. Your rejecting those who have nothing to lose for those who could just call it a phase.
Orgs around me are:
- Boomers. Have never said a word about racism or LGBT stuff. The CCP sends them greetings
- Boomers. Have said one word about racism. Have never said a word about LGBT stuff
- More sectarian boomers. Have never said a word about racism or LGBT stuff.
- Young energetic people who know how to TikTok. Says sensible stuff about racism and LGBT stuff. They’re also a bunch of Trots who shit on Stalin.
Ah, the Amber Party.
Amber.
Sorry, I see this a lot bit never got what it’s supposed to mean.
You have a good nose for bullshit. “Identity politics” have been central to successful organized Marxism for over a century. Attributing them to ‘post-modernism’ is itself a contemporary idea that divorces them unessecerily from class politics.
Most communist states always had specific women’s labor and political groups, as well as usually catering towards the needs and problems of ethnic minorities. The need for this is well recognised even as far back as Marx and Engels themselves, with Eleanor Marx being one of the prominent caretakers and disseminaters of Marx’s writing into the hands of the continental European left after his death, with the Bolsheviks truly being the party that insisted on a multicultural doctrine, having leaders from many different ethnicities and nationalities, and insisting on native language and ethnic conservation programs (something which even the modern CPC continues today). It is in fact a rejection of material support of this multi-cultural heritage that exemplifies the worst revanchist and reactionary elements of modern Russia, which is now experiencing a greater cultural flattening (loss of non-Russ language and culture) than ever existed during the Soviet period.
The idea that we can just become one big working class is an idealistic model of class politics that doesn’t represent historically successful communist parties. In order to get to that point, as that is where our power lies, through our labor, we will have to address matters of identity. We don’t get there by insisting they don’t exist.
Edit: This catering toward ethnic minorities within the party btw, was one of the essential wedges used by the ‘National Socialists’ to distinguish themselves from communist parties. You know we are in a bad place theoretically when even supposed communist organizations are parroting literal Nazi propaganda towards organizing the working class.
The idea that we can just become one big working class is an idealistic model of class politics that doesn’t represent historically successful communist parties.
You mean by pretending there are no oppressions between members of the same class ?
Essentially, yes.
Histories and current oppression and discrimination have to be addressed to understand the role of dominant identity workers participation in this discrimination and how it weakens the cause of labor as a whole. This is not “identity politics” it is the very essence of ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.’
If there is to be a vanguard party movement, then it is within their ability to address the needs of identity. The inability to do so suggests a lack of understanding of what Marxism is about, which is a further postulate of liberal thinking, a rejection of the libertarian idea that the needs of individuals are necessarily opposed by the needs of society, instead falling for a stripped down version of Marxism often postulated by western academia that is essentially vulgar class politics and materialism. Being a dialectic materialist doesn’t mean a rejection of ideals, it just means understanding that any ideals that are not rewarded by a material base are built upon sand. As such, any worker’s movement that does not seem to empower dispossessed minority groups will soon find itself without that support, which is essential, not only for our ideals but for pragmatism as well. Nothing crumbled faster than ‘Marxists and communists’ who sought to subsume all identities into stripped down “Well we are all the working class, so you should just be on our side.” ideology and practice.
any ideals that are not rewarded by a material base I’m not sure I understand this sentence, could you get into it more or give me some book recommendation on this?
BTW I’m digging more into their position and found this bit again about identity politics:
These claim that some parts of the working class benefit from the oppression of others - which is in essence the same lie as the capitalists’ claim that oppressed workers take other people’s jobs.
What the fuck is this first part?! Do these people not understand systemic racism and how it can up to a point benefit working class white people? I mean also living in the imperial core is literally benefiting from the oppression of the periphery.
You should read Marx and Engels ‘The German Ideology’ to get a firmer grasp of how this whole dialectical materialism thing is supposed to work.
That said, the basis is so simple that it has literally been smuggled into conditional psychology, despite being formulated before Freud was even born.
Basically, human ideals and ideology are not grounded in approaching a divine will (as Hegel would say) but in what is rewarded by classes of ownership. As the ruling (ownership) class changes and benefits from changes in production, so to does the ideology created by them.
An ideology that does not materially benefit the ruling class is largely phased out losing it’s ‘conditional’ (this bit is my words not Marx or Engel) properties on the working class. Literally, ideologies are skinner boxes for the ruling class based on what the current model of material production is. An ideology without some type of material reward system will (statistically speaking) be discarded in favor of one that does. There will always be outliers, but that does not make something the primary ideology of the era. The goal of the revolutionary then, is to seize the means of production by any means available, and orient them towards rewarding an ideology that has communist/socialist ideals, which should be oriented around the ideals of the working class, as the primary creators of value, not the ideals of the ruling class, who are parasitical on that labor-value.
It’s incredibly unclear to me how these trots get to their conclusions outside of a complete reactionary rejection of Marxist-Leninist analysis. It’s basically “Lenin said there are labor aristocrats, so therefore there aren’t.”
Thanks for the recommendation and the explanation, I’ll add it to my reading list.
Stay far away from anything IMT. Aside from having bad takes they are notorious for mistreating their members.
Are there any orgs in your area running anti-imperialist protests? Having good international takes can be a good barometer for a generally good org.
Lol I talked to some RevComs a few months ago. When I tried discussing labor politics with them they had no idea what I was talking about. Then they told me they knew someone who was organizing at the company I worked for. Then they asked me to join the party.
After a month of trying to get in touch with the person organizing, they told me that the effort had stalled out, they were never really involved to begin with, and they were probably going to quit in the near future. Then they asked me to join the party.
