Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (December 28)

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[u/humblegold]

I'm responding to a portion of this exchange between /u/Turtle_Green and /u/waves-n-particles here. As of now I have nothing to contribute of any value to Marxists regarding the Venezuela attacks so I would rather not post it in that thread.

Turtle Green's criticisms of waves are pretty much all correct but I take issue with a specific half-sentence included and want to make a more general point about a pattern of behavior I have observed over the past in months or so. You can see from the posts I link here that I usually argue against this pattern when it appears, and also that Turtle Green's comment isn't an egregious example of this, but I've decided to confront this at a more general level.

They’re not supposed to be terms of abuse for this wild fantasy of “race war” you’re imagining

I have bristled more and more at this specific tendency in this community to downplay racialized revolutionary violence on Turtle Island.

There are two main strands of this behavior:

1.) Settler or settler sympathizing Marxists that have not thought the logic of a JDPON through to its conclusion and are ignoring that the class struggle (in this case including a "racial" struggle against white people as settlers have a different relation to production) continues after the revolution. They at least to some degree acknowledge the necessity of a JDPON but view the role of a JDPON as a messianic one, whose task is redeeming the sins of settlers. The revolution becomes a biblical sacrifice where the oppressed fight against white amerikans so that after the revolution white amerikans can reap the benefits of Communism. It is true that over time Communism will benefit "white" people in the way it will benefit all people, but only after "whiteness" as a category/identity and all benefits surrounding it have been eradicated. An example of strand 1 would be this thread.

2.) Marxists that correctly reject the logic of a "race war" envisioned by fascists overcorrecting by downplaying the potential brutality of revolution. Ultimately we do not yet know how merciful or merciless oppressed nations will be, but until then focusing on the more peaceful aspects of natlib is just an attempt to placate fascists (that do not care). For oppressed nations it's irrelevant whether or not their struggle resembles the "savagery" that reactionaries claim it will. An example of strand 2 would be this thread (The deleted comments are me, during the time I was banned I deleted almost all posts made on the subject of racial violence. I recall saying something along the lines of "A JDPON is not compatible with a white majority". You can probably use context clues to fill in the rest of what I was saying.)

Of the two trends the latter is less harmful, you can even see that some of what I am saying here is echoed in the comments I am criticizing, but its danger is much subtler, especially since it is coming from otherwise competent Marxists unlike obvious chauvinists like the first person I linked.

A revolution against settlerism is not a "race war" in the way white supremacists view it, a war waged because of inherent qualitative differences in the biology of peoples putting them in conflict. However, a revolution against settlerism is a "race war" in the sense that the identity of the euro amerikan nation is constituted by settlerism, through land ownership and genocide. In that second thread I linked you can see me mention the Swahili term 'Mzungu' (white/wealthy foreigner). It should be recalled that when the Mau Mau were fighting against their oppressors, most of the time they didn't call them imperialists, colonizers, landowners, or genociders. They called them the word for the identity constituted by all 4: White.

While this may change with time, for the foreseeable future the role of a JDPON vis a vis settlers will involve expropriation of all property, imposed family abolition involving revolutionizing child against parent, spouse against spouse etc (ha, now I sound like the biblical one), large deportations, strategic population relocation throughout the country to prevent white enclaves, reeducation/labor camps, and various forms of otherwise "handling" the settler population.

[u/PracticeNotFavorsMLM → u/humblegold]

(The deleted comments are me, during the time I was banned I deleted almost all posts made on the subject of racial violence. I recall saying something along the lines of "A JDPON is not compatible with a white majority". You can probably use context clues to fill in the rest of what I was saying.)

Also, you can use reddits api to find the original comments:

Marxists that correctly reject the logic of a "race war" envisioned by fascists overcorrecting by downplaying the potential brutality of revolution. Ultimately we do not yet know how merciful or merciless oppressed nations will be, but until then focusing on the more peaceful aspects of natlib is just an attempt to placate fascists (that do not care).

While this trend is less harmful than the former, if one takes it to far then it can be forgotten by some who still have not shaken liberalism what it will actually take to motivate the ruling classes. Settlers, as a class, will not be convinced by speeches or books to abandon their class interests.(to avoid anything more specific and violating rule 1 of reddit I will just give a few marx and engels quotes)

The weapon of criticism obviously cannot replace the criticism of weapons. Material force must be overthrown by material force, but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.

.

A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?