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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.
On the Japanese side, Mao urged their "patriots" (a term he used in the context of his book, opposing it to Chinese patriotism) to practice revolutionary defeatism, a term we owe to Lenin -- doing their best to ensure the end of the war and their whole imperialist State, instead of waiting for things to happen without their input.
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.
It should come as no surprise then that many self-proclaimed patriotic socialists not only espouse reactionary views that are incompatible with socialism on a State level, but are also proud to claim them. Here is an example on the right:
MechaOrvo for example includes "Anti-Globalist" in his Twitter bio, a known dogwhistle almost entirely used by fascists to mean Jews. "Globalism" is not the same as "globalisation"; the former is a supposed ideology (denoted by the -ism suffix), while the latter is a process that happened as capitalism developed.
MechaCena includes "honk honk 🚚", a nod to the 2021 truckers protest in Canada, which were a reactionary, bourgeois-aligned series of strikes that aimed to drop covid lockdowns and restrictions (thus bringing people back to work in a deadly pandemic, which is in the interest of the bourgeoisie that lost billions in potential profits over the course of lockdowns).
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.
To give an idea of their size, Infrared's Telegram channel boasts 920 members, and their Youtube channel 23 thousand subscribers. As these numbers are from social media, we must also consider many accounts are inactive, joined for other reasons than supporting the channel (collecting data, keeping up to date...), are bots, etc.
In absolute terms, this means infrared (for one) is smaller than many other "leftist" youtubers or figures.
Jackson Hinkle, another virality-chasing patriotic socialist, boasts 129 thousand members on his Youtube channel but struggles to reach even 60 thousand views on his videos -- an indication that many started following him but forgot about it over time, and probably don't remember they were subscribed in the first place.
Patriotic socialists may have one thing going for them: their reaching out to the reactionary portions of the working class; but we must stress out the "may" in this sentence.
Indeed, if the revolution rests on the organising of the working class, then it follows that sooner or later, their reactionary elements, elevated to a state of false consciousness towards the interests of the bourgeoisie, will have to be integrated. In past revolutions, we have seen that the reactionary elements of the proletariat first join the counter-revolution against communists, but then still exist even after the revolution -- and must be dealt with in one way or another.
Instead of elevating the reactionary working class to become class-conscious and realise their proletarian interests (through the theory and praxis of Marxism-Leninism), patriotic socialists would rather tail them -- meaning to let them carry on and simply follow the reactionary elements in their reaction. Instead of educating, they validate. Past the revolution, what will happen to those reactionary elements that were integrated and validated into socialism? They will keep being reactionary, with a state that now also sanctions their reactionary elements. Thus such a state could only be reactionary in nature, and not progressive (i.e. working towards communism).
MAGACommunism
The new infrared-aligned development of MAGACommunism is an attempt to summarily fuse MAGA (Make America Great Again, the slogan to Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign and now a primarily petit-bourgeois movement of its own) and communism. Their body of theory (explaining the reason for existing of MAGACommunism) is concentrated in one essay Haz (of Infrared) published on his substack. The essay is overly mystical in nature, and that is perhaps why patriotic socialists are turning towards Dugin, another mystical quasi-fascist author: it makes their community more susceptible to reading what they perceive to be groundbreaking theory when it is dressed in obscure, seemingly profound language.
It's interesting to note that MAGACommunism made an apparition shortly after the Center for Political Innovation disbanded. The reason for the dissolution was that allegations came out from former members against Caleb Maupin, whose CPI was his personal project that he controlled much like a cult leader would (and indeed indoctrination, as well as sexual harassment and abuse, was brought up against Maupin).
Prior to that, Infrared pushed the "Mechatankie" hashtag, following their theory that only manual and heavy industry labourers form the proletariat, and "Starbucks baristas" or other service workers (in a country where more than 70% of employed people work in the service industry) are not.
Tactics
Patsocs do not currently form the vanguard in the United States, nor are they interested in becoming it.
Instead, their movement is solely found online where they act in any way necessary to create visibility and engagement in an attempt to go viral.
Following this, it's entirely possible to analyse their social media tactics as any other viral attempt from businesses or influencers. But that would only be telling half the story.
We see for example that patsocs only ever attack the left (even the marxist-leninist left, which they also claim to be!). They sometimes retweet or reply in agreement to conservative or otherwise reactionary public figures.
Analysing their behaviour on social media, we see several things happen. As we have had the chance to be the focus of a patsoc brigade recently (mostly led by the infrared community), we are in a good position to analyse and describe their tactics.
In a word, their tactics can be described as "self-aggrandizing". The guideline they apply is to make it seem that they are more popular than they really are, always.
They present a distortion of Marxism, using cherry-picked quotes that agree with them without studying their context. Marxism is not a science that can be understood atomically (meaning that one can), it is closer to a holistic domain, one that has overarching guiding principles through which individual texts can then be understood and replaced in their context.
Brigading and "likebombing"
Their group is small, but tightly-knit. They all follow each other on Twitter (their main social media) and as such can act as the sentry to an artillery gun: just point and shoot.
If they find someone to brigade, one of theirs will like the tweet and might retweet it or quote tweet it. This action will show up on others' timeline, acting as a signal (the pointing part), where they will jump in (the shooting).
Soon enough, other patsocs will follow and drown you out in endless replies. They systematically like and retweet each others' content, and even their own tweets (known as likebombing) to make it seem they are bigger and more popular than they actually are.
In truth, anyone looking at the profiles that like such content will see that they are mostly liked by the same people and rarely reach over 20 likes. As we pointed out, their community is still absolutely small (in relative terms, they are insignificant compared to the whole USA). As Twitter shows all notifications, including who liked replies to your tweets, their practice is even more obvious: it is not uncommon (even normal) to see a random, patsoc account like and retweet 5, 7 or 10 replies in a few seconds.
Quantity over anything
In these replies, as well as their tweets more generally, their guideline is to post whatever goes through their mind without thinking much. The point is to keep posting so that there are more chances of a tweet going viral. This is how we end up with nonsensical tweets that contradict themselves sometimes (see on the right for an example).
This flood of quantity also servers another purpose: drown out arguments and get visibility. It is simply impossible for a single person to reply to every tweet they are assailed with in such a brigade.
Avoid, pivot, retort
A common tactic used in bad faith discussions in general is the "avoid, pivot, retort" -- much like in a boxing match.
If you make an argument in a discussion with them, they will first avoid it: completely ignore it and talk over it.
They will then pivot to another argument: change the topic completely from what you were talking about.
Finally, they will retort (or counterattack) with their own attack: after changing the topic, attack your character or make up opinions they think you have. Then repeat the process.
The important thing in this technique is to always come out on top. Always come out looking better than your opponent, and make up arguments, opinions, anything you can lie about to make them seem worse than they really are.
For example, while most of these users never once used Prolewiki or have read any of our pages, they were suddenly experts on our principles and mission statement and thought it welcome to offer their suggestions on how to lead our encyclopedia. One of them, for instance, tried to claim that we used British English (in a bid to make it seem like we were not Statesian, which we are not and have never claimed to be) but it was decided to use Statesian English and Prolewiki by and large uses Statesian English.
Make up self-important arguments, victim complex
As we pointed out, patsocs (and infrared more specifically, but not solely) like to make themselves seem more important and bigger than they really are. As such, when attacking leftist or communist structures (CPUSA, Prolewiki...), they will misrepresent one's points and arguments in favour of a scarecrow.
When Prolewiki voted to remove a conniving administrator that went behind our backs for example, the infrared community (who was mobilised to make accounts under false pretences on the wiki) tried to spin this as Prolewiki banning them pre-emptively, without reason. The evidence of the administrator's conspiring was given however and was plain to see (see picture)
They show a pathetic (in more meanings than one) victim complex in this behaviour: always making themselves to be victims of "not real" communists, of ultras trying to keep "actual communists" down.
The importance of being "actual communists" is important to them, likely in an attempt to co-opt the communist movement itself in the USA.
Breaking down, building up
In their self-important brigading tactics, patsocs will also notably try to break their victim down: we do not count the times they just outright tweeted insults at us.
Later, after a thorough thrashing, they will reach out with the olive branch: "we could work together, there's no reason not to, if you would just be reasonable". This is ignoring that they started the "beating" and have not once argued in good faith or tried to reach out before starting the brigade.
This is, interestingly, a tactic cults use to indoctrinate their victims.
Rebooting profiles
Finally, they will once in a while reboot their profile. They will change their profile picture as well as their name and sometimes handle, possibly in an attempt to look like a new member. In this way they can make it seem like they are more popular than they really are and have a lot of followers.
Does it work?
Now that we have identified these tactics, we must ask if they actually work.
Truthfully, not really.
The only people that like or engage positively with patsoc tweets are other patsocs, who are already down in the pipeline and cannot be reasoned with -- they essentially act like this already.
Meanwhile, in the course of the brigade that started over Prolewiki removing an administrator, our twitter account gained over 65 new followers.
Essay might be continued later to include a conclusion but is ready to be published.