It is the basic duty of revolutionaries in imperialist countries to welcome the defeat of their own ruling class. This is the concept known as revolutionary defeatism. Instead of defending or upholding the imperialist status of one’s own country, you welcome its upheaval. Though the ruling class in the imperialist block is against the working people who make its wheels turn and though it cuts into the wages and collective ability of workers at every turn, the expectation of every imperialist society is an ardent defense of the ruling class. Institutional binding constraints workers from approaching the upheaval of this system, to unlock this understanding is truly revolutionary. Even if the targets of US government hostility were imperialist, it would still be correct to welcome their advance, it would still be correct to welcome the victory of Russia in Ukraine. It is never appropriate for a revolutionary to side with its own imperialist bourgeoisie and this is fundamental. In every conflict, the pressure to be swayed is cacophonous and the underlying threat to dissenters is palpable, experts and lies are thrust forward in a sounding chorus, the Revolutionary Defeatist is subject to total social abjection.
It is critical to point out that Russia and China are NOT imperialist. Lenin’s definition of imperialism describes “export of capital” and banks and corporations based in western countries seizing parts of the world in “territorial partition” and subsequently preventing the third world from developing. These imperialist countries extract super profits on the basis of preventing economic stability and implementing aggressive destabilization programs. The imperialist powers must maintain a dependent and subservient relationship with the rest of the world in order to reap their huge profits and sustain their decaying economic system. Russia and China’s economies do the opposite of this because they enable the countries they trade with to flourish. They do not rake in “super profits” by seizing parts of the world or by their influence, rather their investment results in a beneficial exchange and structural development. Russia’s economy is centered around exporting its own oil and gas. China’s economy is centered around state run industries and a heavily controlled private sector. Neither of their economies is held together by seizing the development of any other country in order to extract huge profits. Imperialism has an economic definition, it is not a policy or action, rather it is an economic system.
This definition of imperialism is persistently muddled and mystified through language and the social apparatus. Viewpoints that abstract imperialism away from this economic basis are foisted upon the people of the imperialist countries at every turn. A vague and tenuous grasp of economic systems propel young radicals and dissidents away from a sound understanding of imperialism and they crash back and forth being tossed by every new academic abstraction and news item. There is a reason why so many so-called socialists in the western sphere of influence are neutral or even support the US-NATO position on Ukraine while falling into an easy rhythm of condemning Russia and demonizing China. Any finger wagging at the US military industrial complex is couched in this demonization of anti-imperialist powers and in that way, it perfectly serves the imperialist agenda that seeks to gin up hostility and support among the masses of people for intervention and military escalation. The expression of talking out of both sides of your mouth comes to mind, the liberal legitimacy of the academic and managerial class in the imperialist countries requires these two faces and this supplants revolutionary defeatism. There is an ease and moral superiority in being against everything and that marks this intellectual and activist class, but a fight that upholds the economic status quo is only play acting revolutionary affectation, it is a put on. The non-profit industrial complex and the academic streams feed the activist workers and students from this poisoned well which produces a perilous confusion. The channels for funding activism are constrained by NGO’s which are profitable on the basis of catering to enormous foundations that accrued their money and influence through imperialist plunder and require the maintenance of that imperialist plunder. Similarly, research and publications are constricted by the whims of universities that act in the same manner and require a deference to the supremacy of identity, in this sphere the cultural is primary and academic jargon flourishes in books and media and through the incessant use of arcane language at every institutional level. With all of this nudging, the “proper” views of “woke” and the reaction to them i.e. “anti-woke” become mainstream currents that seem to occur as some inevitability, but in actuality this is calculated social engineering that forwards this limited framework as a single imperative. Marxism is, in the western understanding, a model for cultural deconstruction and articulation but is made to never touch the economics on which it is actually based. In this framework injustice is a discreet happening to be rooted out but is propelled through institutional systemics and power stemming from an abstraction known as “whiteness”. There is certainly an assurance being made to the ruling class in this intellectual product. Assuredly any word or action, no matter how hostile to capitalism, will never be permitted to touch the material economic system that is imperialism. Assuredly western marxism will be a symbol of rage, an outlet for discontent but completely void of power or incisive ability. As Lenin stated, “It has been shown in practice that working-class activists who follow the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves. Without their leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power”.
And yet for the first time since the end of the Second World War, economic conditions have led the US working class to be more anti-establishment than ever before. The material realities of extreme wealth disparity and economic stagnation have illuminated unspoken truths and have resulted in a great deal of skepticism toward official media narratives. Working class people are now opposing wars in a number unseen in most of our lifetimes. Even with all of this potential, the prevailing wisdom among “socialists” is that these are “fascists” who are spreading “conspiracy theories.” The left mobilizes defense of the establishment against populist dissent and with their condemnation and ridicule they help route this raw dissent into the safe parameters of “anti-woke”. We see the proof that there is a great need to go “out of the movement to reach the masses” and cut ties with the primary leftist entities. We take up the directive to get past the western leftist held spaces and methods, the US radical nostalgia and the elitist phrases disguised as Marxism and instead actually approach working class people with an anti-war message and economic populist program of demands.
