In my opinion there is a huge reason why there is no strong communist movement in the states. It is because most of the parties and ORGs have adapted tailism as their main ideology. Meaning most parties or ORGs simply tail the liberal anti-war movements or use liberal slogans to gain support. And some groups even create liberal fronts for a certain subject or movement and do not use their fronts to create an opportunity to advocate for socialism. This tailism has been going on since the 60's (maybe earlier) and has proven to be an incorrect method of building a real movement.
As this picture says, the reason people are STILL protesting is because protesting doesn't work. Protesting as a tactic to "fight the power" or "fight the man" is a pacifist joke and the fact that the socialist groups in the US have bought into this crap is nothing less than a crime against the people. The masses need us to be working for them and leading them forward. Not standing on the streets with a bunch of pacifist liberals yelling their liberal slogans. The protesting activist circles are not the masses nor are they revolutionary. Why are these socialist wasting their time on reformist, pacifist liberals? I don't know the answer but if someone does then please let me know.
It is important to fight liberalism in our country because liberal slogans and the liberal activist circle has been the death of our movement. Of course like Ive mentioned in previous post it will take some converting of liberals in this country in order to build a communist movement but talking to/trying to convert liberals and playing tailism with them are two majorly different things.
Converting liberals to socialism is one way to combat liberalism but we on the left need to think of creative ways to take that battle further. Of course a huge part of being a Maoist is knowing who is a class enemy and why they are a class enemy. The ignorance in a person might say "well the liberals are poor so they are not our class enemy". But this is incorrect because while some poor people in society might be liberals, most poor people do not vote and certainly the most oppressed section of the US population (migrant workers) don't/can't vote. Most liberals still stand up for capitalism and some liberals do not even want full social services. Most liberals are middle class "blue collar" workers, or small business owners (bourgeoisie).
The liberals do not fight for the empowerment of the people or even for the betterment of the people. The liberals do not even fight for the betterment of the middle class workers. They too fight for the corporations and the big bosses just as much as the neo-conservatives do. A big sign that the liberals are a big enemy of the people are things like "Moveon.org" who fool people left of the liberals by saying "we want something better" but then just support the democrats and they refuse to criticize the democrats to any end. And this group has millions of members, it is depressing to see the people cheated like that. They are an enemy of the people, because they are herding progressives right around back into supporting the people we already know to be against the people.
But part of the blame is on US the communist. We have played tailism and have not shown the masses any alternative to the liberals to the point that some progressive democrats have called themselves "left-wing". We argue so much between ourselves that no one outside of our socialist and the activist circles even know we exist. We have no sway in politics at all, is this not depressing to anyone else? The only "communist" organization with any sway (they are not revolutionary communist that is for sure) is the CPUSA and that doesn't even count because they only have a very little fraction of a sway in the.......that's right the democratic party AKA they play tailism.
If we are to move forward to socialism in this country then all the parties need to start advocating for socialism and stop using their front groups to promote liberalism. Of course some parties and ORGs are more guilty of this than others but in the name unity I won't point them out by name. If we do not advocate for socialism how will people even know we exist? Let alone what we stand for. Every group has a "What we stand for" book or brochure but they don't advocate for socialism outside of these papers. So how would the average Joe ever convert to socialism if at all the rallies he goes to the socialist are the ones follow and chanting the same slogans as the liberals? He wouldn't, he would think that socialist are just the extreme side of the democrats.
Another way to combat liberalism is that the people reading this need to unseat all defeatist from their parties leadership. Defeatism in the leadership will only cement your parties/organizations tailism as it's main tactic. Someone in a leadership role once said to me: "you cannot just wish different conditions into existence" he said this as a defense for carrying out tailism under his leadership. To which I replied "Of course we cannot wish anything into existence, there is no such thing as magic lamps. But we can make different conditions for ourselves through hard work and advocating for socialism." He then ended the conversation.
The future is up to us. We can stay on this same 40+ year old path or we can make our own path and start moving forward. We have been the ones who have been holding ourselves back so it is time we let ourselves go in a different direction. A direction the movement has not gone since the 60's: forward!
Written by: Dustin Slagle
Originally posted on The Hong Se Sun 11/30/10
