August 11, 2024

Neither Democrats nor Republicans — Revolution!


 

Introduction

As decisive developments in the United States political establishment take place and the 2024 presidential elections looms ever closer, we find ourselves in a difficult situation. From one direction, we see a reactionary, fascistic movement led by Donald Trump and the Republican Party make gains among the most backwards sections of the population. From the other direction, we see an impotent Democratic Party attempt to rally the progressive strata with deceptive rhetoric calling for stagnation in the current stage of capitalism, not change towards any new, progressive arrangement.
Further, we see that the Democratic Party of the United States is doing little to defend from the rising fascistic movements in the country, but is in fact taking impotent and permissive stances despite its grave danger.
 
The capitalist “democratic” system in the United States has shown itself to be nearing its end. It can only go into a deep mire of fascist tyranny or be made superfluous by the revolutionary movement of the working class.

To that extent, revolutionary socialists face many issues despite the clearly moribund nature of the United States. The Democratic Party and pseudo-radical forces associated with it have attempted for decades to deceive the United States working class into supporting their rule, and many have fallen to this effort, and have come to perceive working within the decaying, oppressive framework of election cycles as the predominate if not sole means to attain change in society.  To that extent, it is our duty to reverse this, expose the anti-work nature of these appeals, to show the regressive nature of electoralism in the United States class struggle. 

Background to the Crisis of American Capitalism

Capitalism has, for the entire span of its existence, has always constituted a system which trends towards decay, malaise, and volatility. As the United States of America represents one of the foremost capitalist powers in the world, it is no exception. 

The historical crisis of capitalism that was the Great Depression in the 1930s demanded the ruling class of the United States to install a president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who could save moribund capitalism from the prospect of socialist revolution in the form of social democratic programs such as the New Deal. Further attacks on the working class were made with the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947 and McCarthyism, which decimated organized labor and radical movements. For the next decades in the 20th century, American capitalism was saved.

However, the welfare system spawned from the New Deal was supplanted with the neoliberal reforms and excesses under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s onwards, the condition of American capitalist democracy has been consistently in decline, particularly after the events of September 11, 2001 and the resulting introduction of even more draconian policies under president Bush and his successors. 

The global capitalist crisis of 2008 generated fertile ground for the rise of reactionary, fascistic movements seeking to turn away the liberal democratic framework while still preserving capitalism. The Tea Party movement and other tendencies emerged, but soon were subverted and astroturfed by the most backwards sections of the bourgeoisie. The nascent discontentment within the petite-bourgeoisie in the United States expanded greatly, and the larger, ruling capitalists quickly exploited this. 

Thus, Donald Trump and his fascistic movement were born, premised on a platform of chauvinism, reactionary populism, supremacy, and so on.  This is the formula by which Trump won the 2016 presidential election. After the crisis of the 2020s began with a pandemic and recession, the capitalist system, to a greater extent, showed itself to be against the interests of the workers, and unrest took place following the murder of George Floyd by white supremacist police officers. Trump and his administration’s expansion of the already draconian police forces to quell these protests, negligent response to and denial of the pandemic, and so forth resulted in a widespread decrease in his popularity prior to the 2020 presidential election. After Trump’s potential in maintaining his leadership diminished, he began to vocally oppose the bourgeois democratic system in the country, and covertly plotted to ensure his position via illegal means. After Trump’s defeat in the election, he refused to accept the results, initiating a self-coup attempt in collaboration with multiple neo-fascist terrorist militias along with unorganized insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. However, Trump’s attempts to maintain power failed, and he was forced to resign from office and allow Joe Biden to succeed him as president.  Thus the present political context in the United States emerged.


Democrats — A Party for Democracy?

"[…] The distinction between the two parties has been diminishing. The fight between these two parties has been mainly over the height of customs duties. Their fight has not had any serious importance for the mass of the people. The people have been deceived and diverted from their vital interests by means of spectacular and meaningless duels between the two bourgeois parties. This so-called bipartisan system prevailing in America and Britain has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working-class, i.e., genuinely socialist, party."  Vladimir Lenin, The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections, 1912  Since the prelude to the 2024 presidential election began, the Democratic Party has attempted to appeal to workers in numerous ways to obscure their true class position as political representatives of the capitalist stratum. One such aspect of their rhetoric has been to pose as defenders of American “democracy” against the despotic Trumpists:Too much of what is happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic. […] MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards. Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you" –Joe Biden, speech delivered in 2022

However, despite this fallacious propaganda, the Democratic Party is as much a part of the falling bourgeois plutocratic system as the Republican Party is, both of which constitute the “two-party” system which suppresses working class and socialist political parties and cements capitalist rule.  We must ask ourselves, when president Biden speaks of the “foundations of our republic,” what constitute these foundations?  According to one of the “founding fathers” of the United States, James Madison: 

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.” [Emphasis mine: S.W.] –James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 10

Indeed, these were views nearly universal among the “founding fathers” of the United States. Their opposition to true democracy in favor of oligarchy is an aspect even their reactionary supporters will confess to. The foundations of the United States were premised on the ability of a small ruling class of rich landowners and slavers in a colonialist context to act freely without reference to popular rule. That is to say — exploitation, genocide, discrimination, minority rule, and unfettered property rights for a few.  These are what defined the foundations of the United States, and to that extent, the Republican Party is not opposed to these foundations but extreme defenders of it in a modern form.  A democracy constitutes the rule of the majority, rather than a powerful minority. Is the Democratic Party an organ for the rule of the people?
 
The Democratic Party is heavily funded by powerful institutions with millions of dollars each and every year such as Bloomberg LP, Charles Schwab Corp, and many others, a large amount of which concurrently fund the Republican Party. Nearly all of the powerful Democratic officials in the Senate and Congress are millionaires and otherwise very affluent The government of the United States, even under an administration aligned with the Democratic Party, have consistently permitted corruption in the form of “lobbying” and have been overwhelmingly more favorable to the interests of the capitalists (a class which much of its leadership belongs to!) while caring little for the interests of the people. 

This overwhelming evidence proves that the Democratic Party is not a party of democracy at all, but — as with their Republican counterparts — a party led by the rich, operating for the interests of the rich, and counter to the interests of the working class. The United States of the government of the capitalists, and the Democrats merely represent the political will of one faction of them. 

In short, the Democratic Party cannot be the defenders of a “democracy” when none exists for the vast majority of the population.


Are the Democrats a “lesser evil”?

There are many, some of whom self-described “socialists,” who will still provide some degree of support to the Democratic Party even after becoming cognizant of its bourgeois and anti-democratic character. This is the politics of following a “lesser evil.” This position of supporting a “lesser evil” is nearly omnipresent in the working class people who are deceived by the Democratic Party. In the 2020 presidential election, the majority of Democratic voters stated that their primary reason for their decision to vote for Joe Biden was because “he is not Trump.”  Much of the proletariat in the United States is not supportive of the Democratic Party and merely vote for it as they know no other valid forms of political struggle. They are lied to by the bourgeoisie in viewing bourgeois democracy as the only arena for political change; not yet knowing of socialist democracy and its infinitely more liberative nature.  The Democratic Party and its aligned corporate media are very much aware of this tendency among their voting base. During the initial stage of campaigning for the 2024 general election, a widespread trend emerged during the presidential primaries among Democratic voters not to cast their support for Biden, but to vote “uncommitted” largely as a measure of protest. In the State of Michigan, over 100,000 voters voted “uncommitted,” many of Arab, particularly Palestinian descent and felt discontented with the continued support and complicity of the Biden administration for the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. While detailing this information, Democrat-aligned academic Michael Traugott stated:

[Selecting ‘uncommitted’] is not an option for the fall general election, where the only alternative to a Biden vote for Democrats will be to stay home or vote for Donald Trump. Given his past record and proposals to exclude Arabs from immigration to the United States, I don’t believe that will be a realistic alternative for many of Michigan’s uncommitted voters.” 
Michael Traugott, “More than 100K Michigan voters pick ‘uncommitted’ over Biden − does that matter for November?”February 27, 2024

This is a view common among the leadership of the Democratic Party as part of their previously mentioned emphasis on fighting to “maintain American democracy.” For the vast majority of the progressive people in the United States, they are faced with a decision: either vote for a right-wing candidate (Biden) who is actively supporting a genocide and is maintaining oppressive policies all while betraying their voting base, or vote for an openly fascistic candidate (Trump) who will not only persist in support for this genocide but expand it domestically against his own people.  Thus, in this case, the “lesser evil” of the Democrats still represents a monstrous, genocidal force. However, this supposedly “lesser” evil has adopted and maintains many aspects of the “greater” evil of Trumpism. Joe Biden has failed to deliver, in part or in full, on the majority of his campaign promises, yet maintained many of Trump’s draconian policies. His administration has continued the construction of a large “border wall” on the border with Mexico which was initiated under Trump and lessened regulations and laws to hasten its progress, continued mass deportations of migrants in large numbers, even surpassing Trump in the number of deportations, and persisted in separating immigrant families and placing children in cages.

Although Joe Biden had campaigned as a “pro-labor” candidate, he has quickly revealed himself as being as anti-working class as any prior president. During a strike by rail road workers suffering from abhorrent working conditions in late 2022, the Biden administration first refused their demand of two weeks worth of sick leave and instead suggested a single day, and then proceeded to enact repressive measures making the strike illegal.  Biden and the Democratic Party have done very little to end the suffering and hardships of the working class. His administration has done nothing to reduce inflation and its resulting consequences for the workers, made critical and negligent errors during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, failed to institute any sort of rent cap and other regulations during massive increases in eviction rates and homelessness, allowed continued police militarization and has done nothing to combat their infiltration by neo-fascists, implemented large-scale neoliberal privatization and austerity measures, and many other extremely anti-working class actions. In the instances where the Democratic leadership does propose certain nominally progressive legislation, such proposals never manifest into anything meaningful as they are quickly diluted, privatization schemes are including into the bill, etc. all the comply with the demands of the American ruling class.  In addition, under the administration of the Democratic Party, supposedly a “left-wing” party, mass repression of working class and progressive movement by police and other state agents have continued. The United States government has responded to nonviolent anti-Zionist protests which started in response to the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza strip with brutal crackdowns and repression, deploying hundreds of militarized police onto college grounds to assault students and other protests and committing other gross violations of human rights in the name of defending a genocidal and colonialist regime at the behest of their corporate masters. Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidential election since late July 2024, is not at all distinct from Biden in these stances.  On July 24, 2024, when Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal and genocidal leader of the State of Israel, came to the United States to deliver a fascistic speech during a joint session of Congress, protests erupted against this blatant show of support for a genocidal fascist regime. In response, police again used brutal methods to quell the protests. A day later, Kamala Harris made a public statement:

Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric.  I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.  I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.  I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.” [Emphasis mine: S.W.] –Kamala Harris, Statement on July 25, 2024

No matter if the politician it is Democrat or Republican, the same inhumane and vile beliefs are held; making use of democratic rights such as freedom of speech and expression are “unpatriotic,” opposing a blatant endorsement of an overseas fascist dictator in the chambers of the government is “hateful,” all of the millions of Palestinians are associated with “Hamas,” peace protests are not allowed if it contradicts capitalist-imperialist interests, and condemning one’s government for supporting an ongoing genocide is “antisemitism.” It is clear what sort of “lesser evil” the Democratic Party is. The Democratic Party is an anti-democratic, imperialist association made up of and operating for the interests of the capitalist ruling class. To support this “lesser evil” means to support police repression, mass deportations, genocide, imperialism, wars, austerity, and the continued exploitation of one class over another. There is nothing that the working class can attain from supporting this vile imperialist organization anymore so than the neo-fascist Republicans, a party which the Democrats are all too willing to collaborate with and empower.

Supporting this “lesser evil” means to excuse any and all of their crimes and atrocities and absolve them from failing to make any meaningful change. Since the Democrats are “not Trump,” all of their actions or inactions become justified, and their responsibility to their voting base becomes irrelevant. This has been shown with the whole of Biden’s presidency, which has seen nothing but unimpeded hardship for the working class yet has acted as a prelude to the rise of American fascism in part due to the Democrats’ own impotence. 


What must be done?

The conditions which warranted working class movements operating within the capitalist electoral framework have long disappeared, and the recent events in the 2020s have shown this to be particularly true.  The “democratic” government of the United States only allows two political parties to exercise political power, the right-wing Democratic Party and the far-right Republican Party, both of which are simply the political arms of the capitalists to maintain their rule without any sort of democracy for the working class. The Democrats have no ambitions for the abolition of capitalism or any other working class interests. Rather, the Democrats are simply present to ensure division of the working class movements and progressive elements while the fascist Republicans dismantle bourgeois democracy itself. As the Republicans fall further into fascism, the Democrats need only to tail them and appear slightly more “moderate” to manipulate young voters eager for change yet fearful of fascism into supporting them. This is always the case even as the Democrats continually move to the right in tandem with the Republicans.  Neither the Democrats nor Republicans are to be supported in any capacity by revolutionary movements. Instead, communists in the United States must ensure the separation of socialist and otherwise working class organizations from the Democrats, expose the anti-working class and reactionary nature of this organization, and form a new revolutionary communist party which will not fight for the maintenance of this repressive capitalist system, but will bring about revolutionary change and a truly democratic socialist republic for the working class. 

Our goal for communists in the United States is, in short, neither Democrats nor Republicans — revolution!


Workers of the world, unite!

May 17, 2024

The Class Struggle in Argentina and its Relevance to the World Proletariat

Preface

Capitalism assumes many political and ideological manifestations throughout its lifespan based on its ebbs and flows; the bourgeois revolutionaries of France and the liberal democrats in the United States and Western Europe during capitalism’s nascent period, all the way to the fascist and neoliberal demagogues seen during its moribund, imperialist conclusion.

What remains is that the state of the bourgeoisie requires an ideology to assist in upholding their power and influence over the exploited masses. This ideology, of course, changes based on the relative degree of consciousness and militancy of the working class and the condition of capitalism. 

In the country of Argentina, we have seen a dramatic shift in the ideology of its bourgeois state in recent months. The decades-long era of neoliberalism nominally ending in the face of a new, rising tide of libertarianism, preaching a new, “radical,” gospel of personal freedom, prosperity, and unfettered property rights, one proselytized by the nation’s new head of state, Javier Milei.

The rise of this extreme-right force is concurrent with the rise to power of other reactionary movements in the Western world, all largely within the span of the 2020s. The crises inherent to capitalism, the global economic slowdown has provided the optimal breeding group for these supposedly “radical” bourgeois movements. Argentina is at the forefront of this revival of extremist reaction, and its historic background which gave rise to these events must be understood as capitalism grows increasingly erratic in other countries.

The events in Argentina prior to Milei’s rise to power

The politics of Argentina have been dominated for decades by a movement known as Perónism. Its namesake, Juan Domingo Perón, was a high-ranking military official who exploited a military coup d’état in 1943 to gain political power and support among the lower strata of Argentine society, eventually seizing a despotic hold over the country by the 1950s. Perón himself was an open admirer of fascist regimes such as that in Italy, yet he never fully embraced that movement. Instead he implemented various, often contradictory, socioeconomic polices during his presidency inspired by center-left social democratic ideas. This was due to the geopolitical circumstances of the time. Perón sought to repress communist and workers’ movements to comply with the demands of the domestic bourgeoisie and his imperialist benefactors in the United States who were in the process of establishing other fascistic military regimes across Latin America to impede the growth of socialism, yet still in an era where the memory of Hitlerite Germany and fascist Italy had not been extinguished. 

​Yet these tendencies towards social democracy did not detract from the fascist character of the Perónist regime, for as Stalin stated:
“Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social Democracy.”
— J.V.Stalin, Concerning the International Situation, 1924
After the overthrow and eventual death of Perón in 1974, the Perónist movement was partitioned into multiple, contradictory factions, some more aligned with social democracy whereas others were more definitely right- wing.

​The Perónist government that had formed following the military dictatorship in 1989 was headed by Carlos Menem, who went on to implement numerous neoliberal policies, including austerity measures, countless concessions to foreign capitalists, assaults on organized labor, etc. These policies were highly regressive in their effects for Argentine society, and the Perónist movement generally began to decline in its popularity among the workers. Thus, as an effective requirement for political survival for the capitalist state, the next era of Perónist governance was that of “Kircherism” — the social democratic policies of Néstor Kircher and his successors.

​Although these actions assisted in preserving Perónism until the 2020s, they made workers dependent on the existence of the bourgeois government’s social programs for continued subsistence. Thus, when the Coronavirus pandemic and resulting global economic crisis began in the early 2020s, the Kircherist government suddenly lost much of its support base as its social programs became unsustainable — allowing various previously subterranean figures and demagogues to arise as the demands of failing Argentine capitalism began to change, most obviously the right-wing libertarians under Javier Milei and his party.
 

Argentina in the first months after becoming the first “libertarian” state in history

“[Reactionary ‘socialism’] consists of adherents of a feudal and patriarchal society which has already been destroyed, and is still daily being destroyed, by big industry and world trade and their creation, bourgeois society. This category concludes, from the evils of existing society, that feudal and patriarchal society must be restored because it was free of such evils. [...]”

"As soon as the proletariat becomes revolutionary and communist, these reactionary socialists show their true colors by immediately making common cause with the bourgeoisie against the proletarians.” [emphasis mine: S.W.]
— Frederick Engles, Principles of Communism, 1847
A notion that spread among the corporate media in the English-speaking world regarded the “radical” Milei’s rise to the post of head of state as an entirely unpredictable outcome, placing the blame on the Argentine workers themselves. However, this view is yet another example of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the United States and Western Europe attacking the proletariat of another country for attempting to find a solution to the issues they largely created. Yet, like Hitler, Pinochet, and Mussolini; the rise of Milei’s extremist movement has a distinct relationship with the collapse of capitalism in Argentina and globally.

The anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei’s electoral “upset” was not solely the result of the demands of the bourgeoisie, but was a further consequence of the increasing desperation of the petite-bourgeoisie, a stratum which is among the most unstable under capitalism — constantly at risk of being “reduced” to the level of the proletarian due to competition from the haute-bourgeoisie yet still maintaining ambitions to advance to the higher sub-strata of the capitalist class, while still consequently having sympathies towards both classes:
“The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative.”

“Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.” 

— Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848 
​During such a militant capitalist crisis, the status of the petite-bourgeoisie was increasingly moribund, thus motivating them to support a pseudo-radical movement which promised a “new,” “better” capitalism which catered to the small owners and artisans from the days of yore.

There were also elements of the proletariat who found themselves providing some degree of support for Milei, with some merely voting for him during the country’s 2023 general election despite disagreeing with his rhetoric. They desired an alternative; anything to detach them from the corrupt government and failing economy they had under the Perónists.

Yet the Argentine people soon realized the extent of the demagogy and deceit on the part of the newly-empowered libertarians. 

The far-right government of Milei inherited a country with a dying economy and corrupt government, facing an extreme inflation rate of nearly 200% and a poverty rate exceeding 40% of the population. Yet instead of rectifying the hardships faced by the general population, the Milei government has instead taken every possible step to enlarge the socioeconomic crisis and implement their extremist, anti-proletarian political program.

Among the first actions performed by Javier Milei as head of state was to employ special emergency powers to sign a decree so totalistic in its attacks on the working class and organized labor movement that it has been termed a “mega-decree.” Using this “mega-decree”, the libertarian government has introduced widespread policy changes; severely reducing unemployment benefits, parental leave, assaulting fundamental democratic freedoms such as workers’ right to strike and organize unions.

Meanwhile, the conditions in Argentina continued to deteriorate, as the Milei government did virtually nothing to halt the rapidly-increasing cost of living and hyper-inflation, with them instead introducing absurd and discontented laws such as allowing employers to remunerate their workers in the American dollar, Bitcoin, milk, and beef. The regime has also taken highly discriminatory stances against marginalized groups, particularly the LGBTQ+ community.
 

The workers’ resistance to the reactionary regime 

The working class of Argentina has hastily begun to realize that Milei and his regime are not allies of the people as his demagogic propaganda would suggest, but the most committed enemies of the people and their class interests. Thus, large-scale protests were held in the immediate weeks of Milei’s presidency in response to the extremist, anti-worker policies introduced.

Yet, Milei, despite claiming to be a “libertarian” who would “break the shackles of the oppressive state,” decided to quell these demonstrations by employing brutal police force and terror and introducing draconian laws which made it far less cumbersome for police to arrest demonstrators. This is not to say that the repressive system in Argentina is fundamentally distinct from the bourgeois democracies in other countries:
“In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich.” 

— Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917
The Argentine workers, however, were not discouraged by the reactionary regime’s repression and austerity, responding by banging pots and pans on protected balconies, articulating chants such as “Milei! You are garbage! You are dictatorship!” in the nation’s capital city, and similar acts of resistance. Argentina’s largest trade union, the General Confederation of Labor, cognizant of the fact that its very existence was endangered by the far-right government, called for a nation-wide general strike which was to be held in late January.

In the succeeding months of 2024, the Argentines workers have continued to fight for their interests with similar determination and gallantry, even after state repression expanded to the point of raiding soap kitchens, emergency canteens, and other places to assist the increasingly famished working class. General strikes took place, protesters struggling against the state’s increasing repression, and so forth. As a result of this, the reactionary government has been forced to delay its most extreme reforms and make certain concessions such as its plan to institute the U.S. dollar as the national currency, facing the prospect of a full working-class insurrection. However, the libertarian government have indicated they will continue with their anti-worker ambitions so long as they remain in power: 
“There is no strike that stops us, there is no threat that intimidates us, [the strikers and their leaders are] mafia unionists, poverty managers, complicit judges and corrupt politicians […]”

— Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich
​The popular resistance will continue so long as Milei remains in power, and the Argentine people are becoming increasingly mobilized and class conscious.
 

Conclusion

“The working class must be able to take advantage of the antagonisms and conflicts within the bourgeois camp, but it must not cherish the illusion that fascism will exhaust itself of its own accord. Fascism will not collapse automatically. Only the revolutionary activity of the working class can help to take advantage of the conflicts which inevitably arise within the bourgeois camp in order to undermine the fascist dictatorship and to overthrow it.” [emphasis mine: S.W.]

—Georgi Dimitrov, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, 1935 
Within the span of a few months under the new libertarian regime, the poverty rate has risen from 40% of the population prior to Milei presidency to nearly 60%, with hyper-inflation taking hold even faster than before the libertarians took power, all of which results of the nascent government’s economic “shock- therapy” and other extreme policies. Concerning Milei’s foreign policy, he has done little more than devolve his country into a proxy for American interests, with the government rejecting plans to join the non-American-aligned economic bloc BRICS, expressing fanatical support for the State of Israel and its war against the Palestinian people, making concessions to the Western-led International Monetary Fund, etc.

Javier Milei, unlike what his pseudo-radical positions would suggest, is as much a part of the problems faced by Argentina as the previous social democratic government was. His “free market fundamentalist” policies have brought ruin to the already failing economy, his “anti-government” notions have been refuted by his heading of state terrorism, and he has made himself an enemy of his own people in the clearest manner. 

Argentina prior to the election of Javier Milei is analogous to the Weimar Republic and Kingdom of Italy before those countries’ fall into fascism. Milei — like Hitler and Mussolini, was chosen by the Argentine ruling class as a final means to protect capitalism from working-class revolution. Fascism is the that exists to repress radical movements, and it is clear Argentina is heading along this dark path. However, the Argentine people, understanding that the far-right government has never sided with their interests, are beginning to resist in increasingly large numbers. There is hope, and there is particularly hope that Milei’s government will soon fall due to its own betrayal of the Argentine proletariat. 

The libertarian movements outside of Argentina cannot be separated from the events in this country. Right-wing libertarians have revealed their true countenance as a modern fascist movement who will act as the shock-troops of the capitalist system. They will deceive the masses with their promises of a “better” economic system, yet when they are summoned by the bourgeoisie to power, they will implement merely an extreme form of neoliberalism we see in the present. 

​International Marxist–Leninists express the utmost support for the proletariat of this country against their fascistic regime. The revolutionary communist movement in Argentina will lead the people’s ongoing resistance and establish a country which is not a vassal of U.S., Russian, or Chinese interests, but a free, socialist Argentina.

Death to all forms of fascism and reaction! 

Workers of the world, Unite!

 

Image attribution: 

​Top Image: “ Represión frente al Congreso Nacional - Buenos Aires – Argentina” by Santiago Sito (CC BY-NC-ND)

 


January 10, 2024

Famous Fraudulent Stalin Quotes Debunked

 Alleged Quotation: 


 
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
 

Refutation:

 
The only source for Stalin saying anything even approaching "it's not who counts the votes..." is Bazhanov's book (first published in 1980 and translation into English in 1990). But, even here, what Stalin is reputed to have said is quite different:
 
"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how."

However, this quote seems to evidence Stalin's concerns to prevent electoral fraud. The exact opposite intention of the "who counts the votes..." quote.


Alleged Quotation:


"The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"
 

Refutation:


Wrong again! This lie has been repeated enough to become fact!

The myth holds that Stalin, on being asked to win over Catholic support by French Premier Pierre Laval responded "How many divisions does the Pope have?". The source for this myth is "The Gathering Storm", by Winston Churchill, 1948, Widely quoted and repeated as fact. 

This myth is propagated to target religious individuals; meant to emphasis Stalin's cynicism and "might makes right" attitude. 
 
This quote was actually said by German Chancellor Otto von Bismark in 1872 to Prussian official Adalbert Falk when Falk was charged with enforcing Bismark's anti-Catholic laws. This was part of the Prussian "kulturkampf" against political Catholicism. 
 
No concrete evidence exists for it ever being said, and why would Stalin, in a majority Orthodox nation need to curry Catholic support?
 

Alleged Quotation:

"Death solves all problems — no man, no problem."
 

Refutation:

 
"No man, no problem." comes from a work of fiction, the novel Children of the Arbat (1987) by Anatoly Rybakov where he had a fictional Stalin say it. In his later work, the Novel of Memories, Rybakov admitted that there was no source for the quote and that he had made it up as fictional dialog.
 

Alleged Quotation: 

 
"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
 

Refutation:

 
He never said it!
 
Falsely attributed to Stalin in order to make people believe he was totally uncaring and unconcerned about the fate of millions... The line instead comes from the book Französischer Witz by Kurt Tucholsky (1932): 
 
"The war? I can't find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!"
 
 

December 31, 2023

January 2024 Announcements and Updates

Revolutionary greetings, and happy new year!

Since our original incarnation in 2022, we have made significant progress in our content and level of ideological development.

With the arrival of 2024, I believe it would be important to articulate certain developments with this project in addition to certain plans which I wish to implement within the time frame of this year.

New developments

New ideological materials from Marxist theorists (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Hoxha, etc.) have been added and more will be included in the near-future. 

Currently, we are actively working on compiling important quotations from the aforementioned authors and including them in dedicated sections. The page relating to quotations by Enver Hoxha has already been completed, and similar sections dedicated to quotes from Lenin and Stalin will be added shortly. These pages may be accessed from the Theory & Resources tab (formerly known simply as Theory).

Other, more trivial details about this website are being improved as well. 

Intentions for 2024

We intend on expanding the scope of our content so as to document current events and ideological issues in much greater detail than previously. This is only appropriate considering the emerging socioeconomic realities which may be faced this year.    

Additionally, it is our ambition to expand the reach of this website and its content via reestablishing our presence on external platforms. In the middle of 2023, we faced difficulties and setbacks in this regard due to internal conflicts along with the hostility incited against us by online revisionist groupings. Please view our Links tab in the coming weeks.

Suggestions, relevant questions, and productive criticism may be directed towards the address provided on the Contact tab.           

September 04, 2023

William Z. Foster on Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism

“Stalin has further developed Marxism-Leninism through many invaluable theoretical accomplishments. His
principal contributions to Marxian theory lie in indicating the path of the actual building of socialism in the U.S.S.R. Thus, his powerful polemics against Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin and their counterrevolutionary affiliates comprised the greatest ideological struggle of our times. They clarified every aspect of the vast and unique problem of building socialism in one country, and surveyed the whole position of international capitalism. They resulted in a decisive victory for the leadership of the Communist Party and, thereby, of socialism.”  

 “Stalin has raised the whole Marxist-Leninist structure still another stage higher by revealing the path to the actual building of socialism and the development toward communism.“  

“Leninism-Stalinism also was the theoretical basis of the international policy of the people’s front, the historically imperative tactic to unite the masses of workers, farmers, professionals and small business people in the capitalist and colonial countries in effective struggle against fascism and for democracy.”  

(William Z. Foster, “Lenin and Stalin as Mass Leaders” The Communist, Vol. XVIII, No. 12, December 1939)

[source]

August 20, 2023

Is Socialism "Totalitarian"?

As socialists and upholders of the dictatorship of the proletariat, we are often bombarded by liberals and reactionaries with accusations of "totalitarianism".  

Within the context of the Capitalist media and ideology, “totalitarianism” may seem like a concept which  is incontestable, for, as one indoctrinated in Liberal ideology would understand, there exists an eternal dichotomy between the “government” and the elements of society which are not the “government”, which includes most predominantly the “free market”. 

Thus, to one who is under the fetters of bourgeois ideology, it may seem only logical that a Socialist country such as the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be perceived as “totalitarian”, due to the abundant anti-Communist propaganda targeting it.

In most of bourgeois academia, “totalitarianism” particularly is defined as a societal situation in which there exists a “single, unifying ideology” which the government adheres to, government control of the economy, and a government monopoly on all public services, including housing, a personality cults venerating certain figures, mass usage of secret police and general mass surveillance of the population, extensive state terrorism, and a lack of consequential public elections.

Most Socialist states are accused of being “totalitarian”, and reactionaries of all sorts accuse Marxism generally of seeking total control of society, with various anti-Communist myths assisting to reinforce this falsehood.

However, “totalitarianism”, like so many other examples of reactionary anti-Communist ideology, is not only an easily refutable concept, but is in fact a projection of Capitalist society itself. That is, nearly all aspects of “totalitarianism” in reality, exist in Capitalist society, particularly in Imperialist countries such as the United States of America, to varying extents. 

“Totalitarianism” has been employed as a term for decades by both opportunist and pseudo-Marxist groupings (such as Trotskyists, who first called the Soviet government “totalitarian defeationists”, and others on the anti-Stalinist “left”) and reactionaries with the purposeful intention, not only to attack Socialism, particularly Stalinism, but to actively conflate it with Fascism.

Were the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc “totalitarian” in their political systems?
 
Before remarking about the hypocritical aspects of the Liberal conception of “totalitarianism”, it is firstly more pertinent to refute the claim that the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe were “totalitarian”, using the bourgeois definition of that concept. 

It is important to note that the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc, with the exception of Albania, beyond the year 1956 will not be accounted for, as that period contained the abandonment of the construction of Socialism, de-Stalinization, and other economic, political, and ideological deviations.

Among the most vulgar claims made by anti-Communist propagandists regarding the Soviet Union was that of its political and governmental system. The claims in this instance propagates the notion that Josef Stalin was a dictator who was omnipotent in all aspects of Soviet life, with faux elections, no institutions or legality which permitted criticism against the government and Communist party, and those who resisted the party line were simply purged by the secret police and either liquidated or damned to a GULag, with the more prominent dissenting officials being subjected to show trials supplemented by fabricated evidence of criminality and with confessions being attained via torture and other physically vile means. Thus, in the mind of the bourgeois ideologist, fulfilling one fundamental aspect of this “totalitarian” system, with Stalin allegedly maintaining totalistic domination of every aspect of Soviet society. 

Similar assertions are made about other Socialist countries in Eastern Europe, that being of politically despotic and stagnate police states.

Despite these claims, however, the political system of the Soviet Union was in fact in deep contradiction to this understanding.

In truth, the system of governance in the Soviet Union was among the most democratic and egalitarian societies ever achieved. Contrary to the falsehoods, the Soviet political system was based on a system of Soviet (council) democracy by which workers, regardless of age, gender, race, religion, etc. were enfranchised, and would regularly elect officials into representative posts into increasing central chambers of the government. This democratic system was even witnessed and documented in detail by outside observers, and was indeed codified in the 1936 Soviet Constitution, with, for instance, article 95 of the constitution stating:

“The Soviets of Working People's Deputies of territories, regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities and rural localities (stanitsas, villages, hamlets, kishlaks, auls) are elected by the working people of the respective territories, regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities or rural localities for a term of two years.”

Further, these officials were not necessarily required to hold membership in the Communist party, with non-party member holders of posts from citizen organizations, workplace groups, and other smaller groupings being permitted. Even former landlords and white guards from the time of the Russian Civil War were, upon Stalin’s insistence, largely permitted to vote in elections.

Stalin himself was elected in this democratic manner in multiple instances, and even attempted to retire from his post many times, but was refused on account of his popularity among the people.

Other aspects in Soviet society such as criticism of the government were not merely tolerated, but actively encouraged, with it being understood that a lack of criticism from the people was indicative of bureaucratism, disconnection, and a general lack of understanding of the socioeconomic condition of society, furthermore, criticism remained a core aspect of the internal Soviet government, namely in the form of Democratic Centralism. Similar to the freedom to partake in democratic elections, freedom of criticism was also provided in the Soviet Constitution of 1936.

It was even the case that the publication of statements and articles from the oppositionist elements of the Communist party was allowed, and was only ceased once they became an open threat to people’s power in the Soviet Union.

Other claims made by anti-Communists, such as the Moscow Trials being fraudulent, are likewise false, with those involved in the trials all having committed provable acts of subversion and sabotage against the people’s government.

One of the most common criticisms of the political system of the Soviet Union and the Socialist states of Eastern Europe was, however, their one-party states. Many say that elections were necessarily unfair in these countries due to their lack of the bourgeois democratic system of multi-parties, yet, this is untrue. This criticism is communicative of the Liberals’ lack of understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which fundamentally functions in a very different manner than the bourgeois dictatorship. Within the Socialist electoral system in Eastern Europe, individual candidates were chosen by the voters to represent them, and many were not even members of the Communist party, with many, particularly in the Eastern European People’s Democracies, being from ideologically distinct factions, such as former social-democrats. Furthermore, a one-party state is not any more restrictive or authoritarian than the multi-party arrangements in bourgeois democracies. The governments of countries such as the Soviet Union were ruled by the proletariat, and the proletarian dictatorship only required a single party to represent its class interests, any specific decisions regarding the development of Socialism in a dictatorship of the proletariat can be discussed and decided upon fully within the context of a single party. In most Socialist states, the citizens never particularly demanded more parties, and indeed, more parties beyond the leading Communist party would have made decisions regarding the Socialist state more cumbersome.

As we can understand, the political system of Socialist states in Eastern Europe were, even by the definition adopted by pro-Capitalist academics, not “totalitarian”, but were flourishing democracies with a degree of egalitarianism and industriousness to overcome the bourgeois pseudo-democracies a thousand-fold, with factors which inhibit democratic rule in the Capitalist world such as lucrativity, class, and so forth being either greatly reduced or excised entirely in the Socialist states.

Were Socialist economies and media “totalitarian”?
 
Beyond this, proponents of the concept of Socialism being “totalitarian” will often attempt to cite the media and economy of these countries, claiming they are exclusively under the control of the central government. To fully refute these claims, it has become unavoidable to note the projection and hypocrisy on the part of these Capitalist ideologists.

To Liberals, one of their most upheld concepts is that of the “free press”, that in order to maintain a functional “democracy”, the media must necessarily be free from the “fetters” of the “government” in order to give the electorate an “informed decision” on whom they should vote for. Thus, to the Liberal, the government being in control of the media, regardless of if it is a Capitalist or Socialist government, is inherently authoritarian and otherwise anti-democratic.

However, this is yet another example of the fallacious dichotomy between the “government versus the free market”. Liberals do not care if this media is controlled by mega-corporations which propagate imperialist fabrications to further their class interests and are motivated to a much more significant extent by making more abundant profits and concocting the most bombastic story about their national enemies rather than bringing the public truth about global events and issues.

The media in Socialist states was present for furthering the class interests of the people and providing the truth about the world. It may have been significantly influenced by the government, yet that was a government for-and-by the working class.

To understand how valid this Liberal understanding of the “free press” is, let us take the most obvious example of a Capitalist society on this planet currently, the United States of America.

In the United States, merely six corporate entities hold ownership of 90% of the news outlets, with these news outlets being extremely supportive of American imperialist efforts and the internal Capitalist system. The Liberal claim of individual voters being able to “choose” what media is correct and extract from the “marketplace of ideas” in a libertine manner is hastily refutable when it is considered that nearly all major news outlets in the United States alone are all deeply in favor of Capitalism, of Imperialism, of the United States government, and of the status quo in general. The only ideological diversity in the Capitalist media is simply what “flavor” of Capitalism you would prefer; corporatocratic austerity, petit-bourgeois exploitation and disorganization, or welfare statism founded on the basis of superprofits extracted from the imperialized countries. Therefore, we can conclude that the “free press” in Capitalist states is no more “free” than a state-press, and unlike the press under Socialism, this de-facto state-press of the Capitalists is clearly anti-proletarian and imperialist, with it existing largely to help provide the ideological justification for Capitalism, or, in other words, reinforce the Capitalist superstructure of society.

As to the notion that a centrally planned economy is “totalitarian”, this omits the nature of the government under Socialism. Not only was a significant portion of the Socialist economies under control of agricultural collectives, the government which owned the industry was under the control of the people, with the Communist party alone having most of its membership strictly proletarian. The five-year plans were a popular effort, and democratically decided. To say that the “government”, and only the government, of the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries controlled the economy is an anti-dialectical statement, for it fails to comprehend the greater nature of the society under Socialism. The government under Socialism is ruled by the proletariat, and it exercises control over the economy indirectly via the state, yet this is worker-control nonetheless.

Why “totalitarianism” fails to transcend Capitalist hypocrisy
 
Finally, now that it has been shown that the concept of Communist “totalitarianism” is false, it is obvious now that “totalitarianism” is truly little more than Liberal projection concerning their own economic system.

Nearly all aspects of totalitarianism exist in Capitalist states. The media is under the control of billionaire-oligarchs and is used to maintain their class dictatorship, there exists a unifying ideology under Capitalism, that being, commonly, Liberalism, by which most bourgeois parties operate under, however, the propaganda of the bourgeoisie merely makes it seem as if we do not live under any particular ideology, with it insisting that the present bourgeois democracies are “the standard political system”.

While Liberals claim that “command economies”, or rather, centrally planned economies are an instrumental of governmental totality in society, at the same time, their Capitalist economies are controlled by oligarchs who maintain total control over the lives of their workers, being able to fire the, lower their wages, and extend their working hours on their own will alone. While Liberals will claim that the Soviet system of free and universal housing was totalitarian, they are perfectly willing to have millions go without housing and starve in the street merely if they lack the wealth, wealth which they are unable to achieve due to the greater issues inherent in Capitalism.

While it is said that Socialist states lack democracy, concurrently, most Capitalist regimes are effective one-party states whose leaders are determined by familiar ties and particularly wealth, with elections which exclude dissenting parties and with corporate “donations” having major influence. There supposedly exists a cult of personality under Socialism, yet Capitalist societies similarly worship leaders, being media-related, political, or historical.

"Totalitarianism" is a concept of Bourgeois propaganda which must be combated
 
In truth, “totalitarianism” is a totally Capitalist invention, and the only people who uphold “totalitarianism” are Capitalists themselves, or more particularly, Fascists.

Totalitarianism as a concept has no place in Marxist discourse, as it is used almost exclusively by Liberals and reactionaries to dismiss Socialism. The term “totalitarianism” is founded on an anti-Marxist and simplistic understanding of society, that the government is merely a static force with no relation to the economy and greater society, that the “free market” is indeed a provider of freedom, and so on.

As such, “totalitarianism” should be abandoned as a concept for what it is - solely Capitalist propaganda used to attack our revolutionary ideology.

  (First published in January 2023. Revisions made in August 2023)

 

July 02, 2023

On the Revisionist Notion of "Actually Existing Socialism"

 

Introduction

Among the lexicon employed by groupings of modern revisionists is that of “actually existing socialism”, commonly abbreviated to “AES”. The concept of “actually existing socialism”, by its most common meaning, refers to modern countries which are deemed by its proponents to be Socialist states, who they commonly believe to possess a ruling Communist party and government who remain stalwart to the goals of developing Communism and combating bourgeois influence.

The countries which are most frequently designated “actually existing socialism” in the modern epoch include the People’s Republic of China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the Republic of Cuba. Other countries, such as Venezuela, are occasionally included in this grouping as well.

To the upholder of the concept of “actually existing socialism”, these five countries must be upheld unconditionally, with little criticism, and with total mental vacuity. Within the understanding of this concept, countries such as the modern People’s Republic of China represent the apex of socialism in the modern world, are total dictatorships of the proletariat, and are anti-imperialist powers whose governments are actively working for the overthrow of the the American and European imperialists and liberation of the proletariat globally.

However, like so many other concepts found within revisionist and opportunist trends, “actually existing socialism” represents an incorrect position.

Why the concept of "actually existing socialism" is false and revisionary

The most clear mistake of this concept of “AES” is that of what it believes is modern socialism. The very fact that “actually existing socialism” upholders view Laos, Vietnam, and particularly modern China as being socialist states indicates the reasoning behind their conclusions - what constitutes “actually existing socialism”, according to its proponents, is not actually based on objective economic relations that exist in these countries, but merely based on symbolism and rhetoric which their ruling parties maintain.

In other words, if the Communist Party of China were to rename itself to the “social-democratic party of China”, cease claiming to adhere to Marxism-Leninism, and other rhetorical and aesthetical changes, while still maintaining the exact same economic system, these revisionists would no longer consider China to be an example of “actually existing socialism”.

Inversely, if a country such as the Russian Federation, which is in all respects a capitalist state, where to officially readopt the Soviet flag, change its name to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, while still maintaining the same economic system, “actually existing socialism” upholders would suddenly consider Vladimir Putin to be the next Stalin and suddenly consider Russia to be “AES”.

Thus, from merely viewing one aspect of the revisionists’ concept of “actually existing socialism”, we can conclude that it is built off a fundamentally anti-Marxist conception, that analyzing really existing economic relations in a society is trivial, if not meaningless to actually determining if a country is socialist or not.

The history of the concept of "actually existing socialism"

To further attain sapience of the revisionism and opportunism of this “actually existing socialism” concept, it is critical to note that the concept of “actually existing socialism”, alternatively known as “real socialism”, itself was conceived in the revisionist, Brezhnevite Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact.

With revisionism often being of a dogmatic form, the Soviet revisionists purposefully developed the concept of “actually existing socialism” as a means to legitimize their deviations from Marxism and social-imperialist efforts.

The ideologists of the Soviet revisionist government and communist attempted to refocus the concerns of the communist movement from ideological content to vacuous adherence to the line of the Soviet Union and its allies merely for the sake of the Soviet Union claiming to represent a socialist state. From this, the Soviet revisionists used this concocted “real socialism” idea to denounce those who repudiated the capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union and its other reactionary policies.

Conclusion

From viewing the history of “actually existing socialism” as an ideological concept, it is clear to all that followers of “AES”, particularly those in the modern day, do not care for actual dedication to Marxism and the goals of revolution, but rather symbolism and demagogy. Furthermore, to those who focus most of their efforts on defending “actually existing socialism”, they have really adopted a position which is retrogressive to the communist movement generally.

The goals of revolutionary communism are not, nor have they ever been, to dogmatically and uncritically uphold a small selection of countries, regardless of if they are socialist or not, but to bring about revolution, and from it socialism, to one’s own country. While in certain instances, a socialist country, such as the Soviet Union under Stalin, may be viewed as being the “flagship” of the socialist revolution, this, that is, the theory of Socialism in One Country, which we adhere to, is still distinct from the modern understanding of “actually existing socialism”.

Regarding the character of the five countries designated as “actually existing socialism”, they have all deviated greatly from Marxism. Countries, such as the modern People’s Republic of China, have even adopted a social-imperialist character. All of the economies of the countries of “existing socialism” are directed upon a profit motive, are run in the interests of the petite-bourgeoisie if not bourgeoisie-proper, and have “communist” parties who are motivated more by bourgeois nationalism and class collaborationism over the goals of revolution and socialism. Thus, just as it was during the Cold War a century ago, defending “actually existing socialism” means to implicitly defend social-imperialism, capitalism, and anti-Marxist trends as well as revisionism.

The concept of “actually existing socialism” has, for the totality of its existence, been used to further ideological stagnation in the Marxist movement, to affirm revisionism and deviationism, and to defend social-imperialism. The mentality which is brought about by following “actually existing socialism” is fundamentally an ill-productive one that will slow down the development of revolution. That is, this mentality greatly favors ideological stagnation and dogmatism over innovation and revolutionism.

For revolutionary communists everywhere, the chief aim of our movement should be the building of socialism via a revolution at home, in our own countries. Let us not stagnate our ideological development via worshiping this small assortment of supposedly socialist countries.

June 09, 2023

Analysis on the Juche Idea and Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism

Introduction 

Topics relating to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and, more particularly, its proclaimed ideology — Juche — is one which generates controversy amongst modern revolutionary circles. Certain comrades perceive the DPRK as a modern socialist state and active proletarian dictatorship whom they openly uphold, whereas others regard the DPRK and its ideology of Juche as revisionist deviations from Marxist theory.
 
To understand the correct position on this issue, we must first articulate what Juche is from an anti-revisionist prospective. Therefore, what are the contents of this ideology?

The fundamentals of Juche

Juche, or more fully, the Juche Idea, has a definition in the Korean language which pertains to self-reliance and independence.  These concepts are among the most defining features of Juche. While it is the case that self-reliance in both economics and politics for the socialist state are desirable, we must understand the difference between self-reliance in the socialist sense, and the self-reliance advocated by Juche

However, the concept of self-reliance and independence as promoted by Juche differs greatly from this understanding. In the text On Nationalism by Kim Jong Il:

"When independence of a country and nation is safeguarded and its independent development achieved, the destiny of the masses of the people, the members of the country and nation, can be successfully carved out and independent and creative life provided to them. In order to defend the independence of a country and nation and ensure its prosperity, it is important to have a correct understanding of nationalism. Only then can people achieve the unity of their nation."
Thus the "self-reliance" and "independence" as upheld by Juche is not the same self-reliance as upheld by non-revisionist theorists, which is employed to prevent the restoration of capitalism and consistent building of socialism, but is, fundamentally, the same "national independence" and autarkic economics as conceived by fascists and other reactionary figures such as Mussolini or Hitler. In more particular wording, this "self-reliance" and "independence" which is promoted both by fascism and Juche is one that omits class conflict and struggle in favor of class collaborationist and bourgeois nationalist aims.

Indeed, this class collaborationist manner of thought projected itself into North Korean economic and political policy.  From the early decades of the DPRK exclusively, the Workers' Party of Korea is known to have promoted a line of a "shared" class dictatorship with bourgeois elements and denied the need for a proletarian dictatorship (similar to the revisionist concept of New Democracy in Maoism).
 
As to the relationship between Juche and Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, in the words of the Korean Friendship Association:
 
"Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is an integrated system of the idea, theory and method of Juche and the great revolutionary ideology representative of the Juche era. The Juche idea is, in a word, an idea that the masses of the people are the masters and motive force of the revolution and construction. [...] By applying Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, it holds fast to the principles of Juche in ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in the economy and self­reliance in national defence, values the Juche character and national identity, and strictly adheres to them."

Hence from the description of this ideology which has been provided, we may understand that Kimilsungism represents Juche in its political application to society. But what is more, Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is said to be applicable not only to the conditions of Korea, but universally!  

 The Juche deviation from Scientific Socialism

Many of the foreign supporters of Juche  — most of whom being self-styled "Marxist–Leninists" — regard Juche as simply Leninist doctrine applied to the material circumstances of Korea, and therefore accept its many dissimilarities from Marxism no matter how stark they may be. While this notion contains an aspect of truth, this is hastily refutable when considering the stance of the main theorists of Juche themselves. 

When reading the library of Juche material created by both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, we see near-omnipresent references to the "originality" of the Juche Idea and Kimilsungism:

"The Juche philosophy is an original philosophy which has been evolved and systematized with its own principles. The historic contribution made by the Juche philosophy to the development of philosophical thoughts lies not in its advancement of Marxist materialistic dialectics, but in its clarification of new philosophical principles centred on man. [...] The Juche philosophy is an original philosophy which is fundamentally different from the preceding philosophy in its task and principles. That is why we should not understand the Juche philosophy as a philosophy that has developed materialistic dialectics, nor should we attempt to prove the originality and advantages of the Juche philosophy by arguing one way or the other about the essence of the material world and the general law of its motion which were clarified by
the Marxist philosophy. " (Emphasis is mine)
To further articulate the nature which Kimilsungism and Juche view themselves in relation to "preceding philosophy" (that being Leninism):

"Lenin developed Marxism and advanced Leninism in accordance with the new historical conditions whereby capitalism had entered the phase of imperialism, with the result that he inspired the working class and the rest of the people to the struggle to destroy imperialist strongholds and to achieve freedom and liberation. This marked the beginning of transition from capitalism to socialism. Our leader [Kim Il Sung] created the great Juche idea after acquiring a deep insight into the requirements of a new era when the oppressed and humiliated masses of the people became masters of their own destiny. Thus he developed their struggle for independence onto a higher plane and opened up the age of Juche, a new era in the development of human history." (Emphasis is mine)
Therefore, in spite of the Western revisionists' thesis of Juche merely being an application of Marxism–Leninism to the peculiarities of North Korea, the founding ideologists of Juche instead hold that Juche represents not an application of Marxism, but an "original" ideology which transcends Marxism. Further, the Jucheist ideologists themselves hold that this "original idea" is not merely restricted in scope to Korea, but to all countries.  

Ergo ipso facto, Juche openly regards itself as a deviation and revision from Marxism, albeit under the heavily euphemistic terms of "original" and "development". This open declaration of revisionism which Kimilsungism provides upon itself is, notably, uncommon amongst revisionist groupings. For instance, Maoists attempt to pose as "Marxist–Leninist–Maoists" and assert that their omission of the theory of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin in favor of the chauvinistic revisions of Mao and Gonzalo are in fact "dialectical developments" to Marxist theory. This is not the case with Juche.

It is relevant that we understand the difference between revisions and augmentations of revolutionary theory. Revolutionary theory is not "replaced" as the revisionist ideology of Juche maintains, rather, it is adapted and made more potent with the experience of revolutionaries over decades. When Lenin conceived of the concept of imperialism, he did not regard Marxism — whose founders of Marx and Engels did not live in the epoch of imperialism — as a "restriction" to be "replaced" with his own "original idea". Rather, he incorporated his developments into the already potent arsenal of Marxism; making the international revolutionary movement all the more stronger.  

The Juche reversion to Anti-Dialectical Idealism 

Juche ideology holds that one of its core aspects is that of being "man-centered". This prospective is taken to the extent that Juche maintains that man is the "master of everything". Kim Jong Il states:
"That the world outlook of the materialistic dialectics [dialectical materialism] is the premise for the Juche philosophy does not mean that the Juche philosophy has merely inherited and developed the materialistic dialectics. Although it would be impossible to acquire a scientific understanding of the world and transform it without the materialistic dialectical understanding of the adjective material world, you cannot draw the conclusion that man is the master of the world and plays a decisive role in transforming the world simply from the proposition of
materialism that the world is made of material and from the dialectical principle that the world ceaselessly changes and develops. Only on the basis of the clarification of man’s essential qualities which distinguish man radically from all the other material beings can man’s outstanding position and role as the master of the world capable of transforming the world be clarified. Only on he basis of man’s essential qualities as a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness as scientifically clarified by the Juche philosophy has the basic principle that man is the master of the world and plays the decisive role in transforming the world been clarified."
This quasi-bourgeois humanist  stance which is propagated represents a clear distortion of Marxist dialectical and historical materialism. While humanity represents the most advance species to exist on this world, man is nonetheless trenchantly, if not entirely, effected by the material circumstance which encircle us. Human will exclusively is not what advanced society forwards, but the development of the productive forces and advancement of class society and later class struggle.
 
To this end, Kimilsungism takes on the view that society is determined and advanced solely by the level of "will" which the "popular masses" maintain, rather than material circumstances. 

Jucheist "Anti-Revisionism": Revisionism in a new form

Juche, despite its vast amount of ideological revisions and deviations, still asserts itself to be of an anti-revisionist stance!

Yet when were the instances where the Korean Workers' Party made an effort to combat Maoist or Khrushchevite revisionism? We seldom hear of the "Sino-Korean" or "Soviet-Korean" splits. This is of course due to the fact that North Korea, since the rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, has consistently aligned itself with revisionism in one regard or another. This is so much the case, that the Workers' Party of Korea remained servile to the social-imperialist Soviet Union to the end, with Kim Il Sung avidly supporting Micheal Gorbachev, remarking that:

“This new change now taking place in the Soviet Union [i.e. the final dismantlement of socialism] is unthinkable apart from the energetic activities of Comrade M. S. Gorbachev, a staunch Marxist-Leninist.”

Furthermore, it is often said  — commonly by the Western bourgeois media and academia  — that the DPRK itself has remained "Stalinist", in contrast to the "liberalized" (Khruschevite) Soviet Union. As to the truth of this assertion, while the DPRK never fully "de-Stalinized", it did not remain stalwart to the ideals of Stalin and other theorists and leaders of Marxism. Rather, it went on a direction analogous to that of Romania under the revisionist leadership of Nicolae Ceausescu. That is to say, Juche neither is Stalinist nor Khruschevite, but rather, like Ceausescuism, represents a bourgeois nationalist deviation from Marxism itself. North Korea, like former Ceausescuist Romania, is merely Stalinist in symbols exclusively, while revisionist in actions.

Hence, the notion that Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is "anti-revisionist" is of similar validity to the notion that Maoists are "anti-revisionists". That is, the "anti-revisionism" of Kimilsungism is not anti-revisionism, but itself a defense of revisionism, as is the case with Maoist "anti-revisionism". This false "anti-revisionism" which is in truth a new form of revisionism is understood as being neo-revisionism.  
 

The "followers" of Juche outside of the DPRK

Juche, as noted previously, asserts itself to be an ideology which is of a universal scope. It is therefore important to remark on the few followers of the Juche Idea outside of the DPRK itself.
 
There exist very few parties which profess the Juche Idea as a leading ideology which are external to the DPRK. The closet there is to such a thing are dozens of paltry "study groups" spread across various countries, all of which are entirely absent of political influence and connection to the proletariat, and all function with nearly theistic, cultist reverence to the icons of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. There additionally exist "Korean Friendship Associations", made up largely of people who hold dual-memberships with various revisionist parties in Western countries.         

Most other foreign Jucheists are known to hold neo-fascist and racist views, with there existing a trend of so-called "White Nationalist Juche" which holds meager influence across various reactionary circles. It must be said that these adherents of Juche are not deviating from it (as Juche itself represents a deviation), but "faithfully and creatively applying" Juche to their "material conditions", with them likely being influenced by Kim Jong Il's works which bear titles such as "The Idea of a Multinational, Multiracial Society Means Destruction of the Korean Nation".    

Thus we can see clearly that from the lack of any notable Jucheist organization outside of Korea itself, Juche — being a chauvinistic deviation — is not at all universal, and the supposed "age of Juche" which Kim Il Sung "bestowed" upon the international proletariat remains a mere pipe-dream which is influenced by a revisionist's megalomania. 

What are our stances towards the Modern DPRK?

Juche is inseparable from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We Marxist–Leninist are unconditionally opposed to all forms of revisionism. For revisionism is capitalism in a new form, and has always resulted in tragic losses for the proletariat. Jucheist revisionism presents no exception. In the present DPRK, a similar process of open capitalist restoration as what was seen in Deng's China or the Khruschevite–Brezhnevite Soviet Union is taking place, even if at a slower pace. The DPRK, additionally, has in recent times proved itself to be a militant ally of the semi-fascist Putinist regime in the Russian Federation and the social-fascist state of China, with the North Korean government being the first nation to recognize the Russian "annexation" of lands in Ukraine and Donbas and has otherwise supported the Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine which began in 2022.
 
This support for imperialism, even if counter to Euro-America imperialism, still breaches mere pragmatism. If the DPRK was truly socialist and a proletarian dictatorship, there would be a clear contradiction between the DPRK and Russo-Chinese bourgeois states. We, on the contrary, must unconditionally oppose the American imperialist military base which represents the "Republic of Korea" (South Korea) regime. Likewise, we understand that the Korean War, or Fatherland Liberation War of 1950–1953 was a revolutionary and anti-imperialist conflict between socialist and capitalist states. 
 

Conclusion

The Juche Idea and Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism represent bourgeois nationalist, if not ultranationalist, deviations from Marxism and dialectical materialism. Juche is anti-materialist, idealist, chauvinist, and class collaborationist, to the extent of openly rejecting Marxism itself under the false banner of presenting itself as an "original idea". 
 
The only state that adheres to Juche — and likely the only one that ever will — has consistently allied with social-imperialists and, in the present day, open imperialist states such as the Russian Federation. 

To that end, the Juche Idea must be combated as we would with all other trends of modern revisionism. 
 

References

1. On Nationalism, Kim Jong Il, 2008

2. On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong Il, 1982
 
3. korea-dpr.com — Guiding Ideology 
 
4. The Juche Philosophy is an Original Revolutionary Philosophy, Kim Jong Il, 1996 

5. 10 Principles for the Establishment of the Monolithic Leadership System of the Party, 2013

6. White Power and apocalyptic cults: Pro-DPRK Americans revealed, Nate Thayer, 2013