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In the current context of the class struggle in the United States of America, it seems that with each passing day, a strand of theory known as patriotic socialism is becoming more and more popular with the masses.
At least, that is what its proponents would have us believe. Unable to create their own movement, self-proclaimed "patriotic socialists" in the States would rather focusing on destroying other established communist parties and projects.
But first, what is patriotism and how does it apply to socialism?
Patriotism in a socialist framework
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. Karl Marx.
Patriotism is a word with a wide range of definitions, and it would be unbecoming of us as communists to use the simple liberal, bourgeois definition. As with everything, patriotism goes through its own contradictions and dialectic, and emerges differently in different epochs and different classes of societies.
In other words, patriotism has a class character.
Bourgeois patriotism for example focuses on promoting one identity above others, so as to better divide the proletariat and keep them fighting against each other. To recruit willing cannon fodder in their imperialist wars, and justify them. To prevent any progressive change from happening. After all, we have it pretty good here, don't we? At least we're not like those people in some faraway country.
Bourgeois patriotism gave us colonialism, which evolved with its own strands as well. French colonists for example, as cited by Aimé Césaire, believed in turns that they: were on a civilising mission; were spreading the right religion; were educating the colonialised; and even thought they were "respecting their differences" while subjugating Africa because of their French values!
Proletarian patriotism focuses on national liberation (China, DPRK) and, in imperialist countries, can be used to defeat their imperialist bourgeoisie. Analysing the war against the Japanese invasion of 1933 for example, Mao correctly pointed out that the Chinese have a "patriotic hatred" against the enemy, which gave them an advantage. In this case he was not making a judgment of values, but simply a statement on their strengths and weaknesses in the war. The patriotism of the Chinese -- not believing they were a superior race, better than any other -- but uniting with a common identity against an invader, was in this case progressive.
This is the class character of patriotism.
Patriotic socialism: a strand of socialism?
It might seem obvious, then, that patriotic socialism is the same as socialist patriotism. That it is merely patriotism and socialism fused together.
This would be wrong.
Patriotic socialism has evolved to become its own ideology and strand of socialism (though we shall see it has very little to do with socialism). Therefore, the two terms must not be confused: patriotic socialism exclusively refers to the US-born and US-centric ideology.
This ideology obeys its own principles and has its own figures, and therefore goes beyond mere patriotism as applied to socialism (or as applied to the proletariat).
This is something patriotic socialists know, as we will see, but the confusion around the terms works very well in their favour.
In this manner, they can claim to be descendants of more notorious, progressive patriotism (war of defence against Japan, Palestinian resistance movement, Vietnamese war of self-determination, etc). In essence, this gives them credibility to defend their new movement.
But because patriotic socialism is its own strand, it has nothing to do with the previous examples of patriotism. They are two entirely separate movements and it makes as much sense to put them in the same box than it does putting materialism and idealism together (they are, after all, both schools of philosophy!)
The principles of patriotic socialism
As we have said, patriotic socialism is a wholly Statesian development. Their behaviour, based on extensive observation, can be summarised as:
- A reverence or upholding of traditional (white) Statesian figures: Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, etc.
- Upholding the US revolution against Britain as a progressive
- An appreciation for the US flag, constitution and generally its institutions.
- An appreciation for Dugin as a theorist.
- A tendency to create cults of personality around their living figures.
The ideology is rapidly evolving, and it is difficult to keep up to date with its developments, which is mostly given by a handful of figures such as Haz (of Infrared), Jackson Hinkle and, until recently, Caleb Maupin.
Some might see a contradiction appear: how is it possible to uphold US institutions, which are directly inherited from slave owners, exist to promote anti-communism, serve the most advanced imperialist country on the planet, and be a socialist?
Truthfully, we are not sure either. As their ideology evolves rapidly and is not known to make much sense (which we will see also later), it is difficult to get a straightforward answer on this. They will usually cherry-pick quotes and events in which the "Founding Fathers" acted somewhat progressive to rehabilitate their whole image.
Patriotic socialists are not organised in any party. Their biggest front, the Center for Political Innovation (led by Maupin), was a self-proclaimed think tank. Their biggest plan was to infiltrate the Communist Party of the United States (which is vehemently against patriotic socialism) and change it from the inside. As such, they hold no coherent or common platform; they do not write party programmes; they are not involved in material struggles in the real world. This is a movement that exists solely online and thus makes it very difficult to extract a common thread in all this mess.
There is also, of course, the big contradiction between the United States' foreign policy and self-proclaimed socialists that want to uphold this status quo. A country that has been at war for 75% of its existence, is the main driver of imperialism today and is responsible for millions of deaths and misery around the world does not inspire confidence in the international proletariat. To see self-proclaimed socialists try to rehabilitate its symbols and institutions strikes fear in the international working class.
There is, this must be pointed out, a rich history of resistance, progress and labour struggles in the United States. But it does not come from George Washington or Alexander Hamilton. The Revolution against the British was, strangely enough, neither reactionary nor progressive. It was merely exchanging power from one oppressive ruling class for another. The "founding fathers" were never hiding that their revolution was about not paying taxes, it was never about "freedom" or "self-determination". It was led by bourgeois liberals and for a time, a monarchy was considered instead of a republic with George Washington at its head! Famously, the United States of America continued the slave-master and colonialist policies of Britain.
It would be one thing if patriotic socialists upheld other important figures (such as Black or Native figures) or made clear that they look beyond the United States as it currently exists to create something better.
But they do not.
Strasserism of the 21st century
Patriotic socialism is a very mystical ideology. That is to say, it is difficult to make sense of it and understand it. It evolves rapidly and is mostly propagated by its current figureheads, who are building it up as they go along. This is also, as we believe, the reason they promote Dugin so much to their audience: another mysticist author who seems profound but says very basic things and still gets them wrong most of the time.
We have seen such double-dealers in the past: the Strasser brothers.
The Strasser brothers were involved in the SA in Nazi Germany. They were big supporters of Hitler, but disagreed with him on some points. Notably, while they believed his anti-semitic theories, they considered themselves to be socialists. To that end they envisioned a Germany that nominally had social programmes, but still carried pogroms against their Jewish population, still vied for class collaboration over the class struggle, still believed in German superiority to other nations.
It is very telling that in the patriotic socialism sphere, there do not seem to be minorities represented or even considered. Patsocs uphold white figures of US liberalism. They uphold a flag associated with slavery, colonialism and imperialism.
Their common retort is: "but if other communists can wave their flag, why can't we?" precisely forgetting that communists in other countries do not fly their national flags either.
In a way, it is a development that could have only taken place in the United States, owing to its rabid history of nationalism and exceptionalism.
A popular movement?
Listening to patsocs talk about their movement, one would think it is the vanguard of communism in the United States. We have seen also that they misuse the word patriotism and the two definitions we have given above to make it seem like they represent something else than they really do.
Their self-aggrandizement is not as accepted as they would make it seem; they remain a very small movement after all (if vocal), and many communists in the United States do not identify with them and correctly label them as chauvinists. This includes marxist-leninists, maoists, hoxhaists, and many other socialist denominations.
People are not taken in so easily by their shady nature. What this movement has going for it however is their loud mouths.