Whether a state is socialist should be judged by real-world outcomes rather than rigid ideological purity.

I wrote about it a bit on the Big Blog already, but Deng Xiaoping and the 1980s China period (that was the immediate precursor to China's current era of Xi Jinping leadership) was a huge influence on THE REVISIONIST. I like this post.

What disturbs the sensible center of American political discourse most is that, should somebody succeed, it is very likely that a huge number of Americans would only find fault with the assassin for provoking a potential backlash, if they found any fault at all.

Scathing and brilliant criticism of Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, son of two Weather Underground members. The younger Dohrn has grown up a liberal, well-indoctrinated (and, to be fair, traumatized) to hate and question his parents actions. The author of this piece rightfully interrogates this assumption on the part of Zayd Dohrn.

“I was in a rage,” Dohrn told her son decades later in an interview for his book, “at the absolute stench of American life.”

Any serious accounting of the Weather Underground must take into consideration that they were young, idealistic, and a bit naive. But those are not unreasonable faults. You could say the same about the Bolsheviks, and I would. The USSR was full of naive dreamers. What the Bolsheviks had that the Weather Underground did not was numbers and training.

One must imagine if the Weathermen had killed a million people in the New York Tristate area with a decade’s worth of bombs. Would it have been better if the Weathermen had worn medals and planned their actions from the Pentagon?

I think a lot about the American New Left. An attempt, however flawed, to bring about an apocalyptic (in the original Greek definition) reckoning with American society, tragically splintered and rife with infighting, both genuine and manufactured.

I learned recently that my grandmother's brother was part of the SDS, and was jailed for it. Why, she didn't know. But it happened, at least. That era is not so far from us.

If you are reading this, sweaty with the worry that I am “normalizing” or “justifying” political violence, consider that I am only asking why you find so many forms of political violence so normal, so justifiable, so adequately met with well, it’s a shame, of course, while the specter of old radicals looms like a nightmare. Sometimes you must stand athwart history, yelling Are you fucking serious? Is it only that you get used to that stench of American life after a while? Is it worth it?

What is to be done?

It is now well understood that the Chinese Communists have interpreted and carried out a continuation of the struggle for national liberation in order to cause this neo-colonial project to fail: there is no political independence without economic independence. At least those who declare themselves Marxist should understand this truth clearly!

The great Domenico Losurdo on China and Chinese Socialism. A great in-depth analysis of China's economic socialism. Loved this.

The Chinese worker who slices a finger has access to a public health system; everyone in China today has guaranteed food, housing, clothing, education, healthcare, clean water and modern energy. That is not a quantitative difference in degree of suffering. It is a qualitative difference in the nature of the society: the difference between a state oriented towards the pursuit of private profit at all costs and one oriented – however imperfectly – towards common prosperity.

Jacobin's brand of socialism is increasingly annoying to me, and this article gets at part of why. There's a surface-level nature to a lot of the critiques ran in Jacobin, focusing on the aesthetics of things rather than their actual nature.

What the review offers, in the end, is an example of what Michael Parenti called “pure socialism”: measuring actually existing socialist construction not against the real alternatives available to a poor, encircled, formerly colonised or semi-colonised country, but against an imagined frictionless utopia.

If the policies of a socialist state are not based on the material conditions of that very society, it will undoubtedly fail. This is, without question, crucial to the success of socialism. The material conditions of each society differ, so of course we need to study and act upon them carefully.

But the reality of a leaderless and structureless movement started by 50 people is, who decides who’s in and who’s out? When millions are now joining you, how do you centralize messaging? How do you stay on target for what you are organizing? In a running theme of this era, the political explosion that MPL created against not a fascist military dictatorship, but a progressive, left-leaning democratic administration, gave open ground for the far-right to take control.

I think that it would be understandable for people to take issue with my growing feelings around needing strong, verticalized, centralist structures to build movements on, but it comes from the same feelings that motivate this piece. Horizontalism is a deeply frustrating way to organize an entire movement, or even worse an organization. Best case scenario is things are slow. Worst case scenario, you are destroyed by the same fascist forces you are hoping to defeat.

It is obvious we have seen consecutive ‘biggest protests in human history’ to little global systemic change. Spontaneous uprisings have been a feature of the 21st century. In some places, one political elite was simply replaced with another. In other places, the states and capitalists cracked down on the movement so hard it hasn’t recovered. Other places were broken by the political vacuums created with no real, organized working class movement to fill that gap.

Imagine for a minute, the ICE uprisings keep scaling upwards. Millions and millions are shutting down the country. Rolling General Strikes from state to state. Then mass marches on the capital, and Trump’s goons flee to Epstein’s Island or some other far hideaway. Who, or what groups, will take over the political power of the country? How will the next decision get made? Did classes disappear? Did the social ills created by US settler colonial society disappear?

This is the key question and my greatest frustration with the modern American left. I am tired of "street protests". I am tired of "calls to action". Not because these things are bad, or even unnecessary, but because in order to work they have to be backed up by concrete organization, something that I feel we are terribly lacking.

So when looking at the vast field of lost revolutions of the 21st century, and the gravestones of all the martyrs we lost along the way, we have to ask ourselves, did we organize correctly? And the answer from the available evidence in most cases says we didn’t. Now we are facing an even worse ecological crisis, rising fascism, a new state of imperialist world order, and mass fascist violence in the streets of the capitalist hegemon—the U.S.. What changes have been made? Are we organizing differently from 2011? Because if we wish to succeed, we must.

Slovenian “national reconciliation” during capitalist transition rehabilitated fascist collaborators, weakened anti-fascist memory, consolidated new elites, and legitimized capitalist restoration.

you will never hate the capitalist enough.

The intended conciliatory discussion between (former) partisans and their associations on the one hand, and the Catholic Church and representatives of the new state parties on the other, remained rooted in cultural struggle and did not actually deal with the past. Instead, the logical consequence was the rehabilitation of fascist collaborators as equal – if not more morally worthy – actors of World War II.

Voluntarism, programmatic idealism, and strategic moralism are typically treated as separate mistakes. This essay argues that there is one error in three domains—the substitution of an ideal political form for material analysis—and that only reversing the direction of determination can correct it.

Don't agree with 100% of this piece but found it an interesting, if deeply academic-brain written, read. Loved this little tidbit from the American analysis section:

The absence of an American labor party is not a contingent historical lacuna waiting to be filled by the right organizational initiative. It is a structural feature of American class politics that has shaped the forms in which class interests can be expressed and the terrains on which they can be contested. The two-party system is not simply an obstacle to socialist politics but a terrain through which class forces are organized. The question of what engagement with that terrain can produce is a strategic question requiring analysis, not a moral question requiring a verdict.

Where I principally break with the analysis is with takeaways like this:

The democratic and electoral terrain is not, as the abstentionist position maintains, simply a mechanism for reproducing ruling class hegemony without remainder. It is the primary terrain on which the political consciousness of tens of millions of American workers is being actively shaped, and the question of whether the left engages with that process or withdraws from it in principled disgust is not a moral question but a strategic one with determinate political consequences.

To which I would say: Is it? Did the Sanders campaign make actual waves in the American proletariat? Is Mamdani a win for socialists, or is he an absorption of New Deal liberalism into the Democratic Party program? From within the borders of the States, I don't think these are easily-answered questions. Working within the electoral frame has some advantages, but I truly doubt the easy answer of "a lot of people vote, therefore that is where power lies and where we must strive". American voting is a complete mess -- both in terms of participation as well as upper class capture. Not to mention the number of institutions in the American government that are not beholden to any mass politic (like the Supreme Court, or in a broader sense the American military). It's things like that that make me doubt the so-called "democratic route to socialism".

To condemn an anti-imperialist state that is actively improving the Global South and other oppressed peoples’ material conditions is to condemn internationalism itself. This is akin to tying a weight around your ankle before running from a predator. Iran has done more for Palestine and Sudan than any “nonviolent protest” ever could.

Rosa Luxemburg coined the phrase “socialism or barbarism” in 1916, in the middle of the first world war, as a general statement about humanity’s choices. In the Caribbean in 2026, it is a concrete question on the table.

Carlos J. Martinez knocking it out of the park here. Viva communist Cuba.

Our relationship to the Soviet Union is simple. The USSR was the first country to build socialism, and we believe that we should analyze the Soviet experience in order to prevent the restoration of capitalism in the future, as it happened in the Soviet Union. Therefore, there is no reason to idealize or, on the contrary, try to abandon the Soviet legacy, as many “leftists” like to do. This is a wrong approach and has no practical utility.

Really deeply well-told interview with members of the Worker's Front of Ukraine, an explicitly Marxist-Leninist organization within Ukraine that is working against the current war. I very much appreciated the RFU representatives clear-eyed analysis of the current war as an imperialist conflict between NATO and the (imperialist, post-Soviet) Russian State.

I cannot imagine how hard and brave it is to be an avowed Marxist-Leninist in Ukraine these days. It's scary enough in the United States, but we are not quite yet at the stage where the state is killing you in the streets for it. The notes about international solidarity with underground and aboveground groups in Russia was also fascinating -- I think this is a great blueprint for how to organize in imperialist nations. Build the party, educate the people, refuse to participate in nationalist-chauvinist activity.

In fact, fascism is an open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of financial capital. Different fascists may think differently about women, gender, and LGBTQ+, but that doesn’t change the essence of fascism. As for us, we consider all those issues as parts of the issue of the proletariat. No more no less. You cannot free women without freeing the working class. Period.

The Ukrainian delegations in the early Soviet union were some of its most ardent supporters. I wish one day that we will see that again.

Therefore, to truly defeat imperialism, we must carry out a socialist revolution and defend our military-industrial complex, which has been destroyed by the capitalist regime in 30 years of “independence.” Precisely when private ownership of the means of production is abolished and the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, only then will we be able to truly defeat imperialism, both Russian and Western.

The US, then as now, remains committed to undermining and destroying Chinese socialism, and has relied heavily upon thinly veiled, CIA-sponsored bodies like Radio Free Asia, National Endowment for Democracy, and the fanatical anti-communist and fantasist Adrian Zenz, with the sole objective of bringing about the fall and disintegration of China, much as happened to the former USSR and Yugoslavia.

I find the propaganda project of the United States around the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 to be a really useful example of truth-twisting. Yes, there were legitimate grievances with the protests -- often centered around the dangerous repercussions of the 1980s Reform and Opening Up period and the lessened rules around capitalist development in China. Also, mass chaos in the streets is not like, good. The nature of the PRC and the CPC in general is one of holding onto power as the ruling class and party of Chinese society, thus it is in their interest to quell uprisings. I don't see this as contradictory to the mission of any proletariat-ruled society, because part of ruling a society involves making hard decisions about how to handle internal unrest.

The fact that China managed to fend off -- then and now -- attempts to replace the CPC with a more capitalist government should be seen as a massive achievement.

The Soviet Union carried the overwhelming weight of the war against fascism.The Eastern Front dwarfed the Western one in every measure that mattered. The Red Army faced and destroyed roughly 80% of the Wehrmacht's combat power. The Soviet people lost over 27 million lives — military and civilian alike. That is more than 60 times the combined military deaths of the United States and Britain. The Red Army stopped the Nazis at Moscow and Stalingrad, broke their back at Kursk, liberated Auschwitz, and planted the Victory Banner over the Reichstag in Berlin.Without the Eastern Front, there would have been no D-Day. Without the Soviet sacrifice, there would have been no victory in the West at all.

The right-wing push to “shrink the government” meant displacing the costs of social reproduction onto private households and privatizing many of the state’s administrative capacity. What came of that was a new practice of citizenship where the ideal of public deliberation over the organization of society gives way to what Berlant calls the privatization of citizenship where “acts that are not civic acts, like sex, are having to bear the burden of defining proper citizenship,” and issues regarding personal morality are central to public discourse.

A bit academic-brained and makes the mistake of assuming that communism died with the USSR, but other than that has some interesting insights.

Anyone who’s ever been to hear a paper or a talk given has seen the person who takes the mic with the pretense of asking a question, but who instead goes on at length about their own interests, or research, or supposed insights. This type of groan-inducing off-topic interruption may be bearable (may be!) in an academic conference, but where there’s real work to be done, it’s an unforgivable waste of time.

Inarguably provocative title of course, but that's the Red Clarion for you. I find a lot of their writing to come off as somewhat juvenile, even though I have (and will continue to!) praise many pieces that they've published, such as this and this and this. They embody a definite communist angle that I can quite respect, overall.

This is a good example -- yes, as mentioned, provocative title, but the overall point is much more moderate I think. The problems with the stack are embedded in its horizontalism, and horizontalism is something I am more and more finding a thorn in the side of any activist or organizational space (honestly, doesn't even have to be activist! this is as much true in corporate meetings as it is in radical spaces). I fundamentally agree with the concerns expressed in this piece: Complete horizontal free speech opens the door to actual harm as much as it opens the door to, frankly, just obstructionist behavior.

I am more and more finding myself aligned with models that allow for targeted suppression of behavior that does not align with the group's stated aims. The key is, of course, having a robust debate about the group's stated aims and a regular series of check-ins about the current status of the group's stated aims. One might call it a sort of democratic centralism, perhaps.

Many Marxists now agree that the revolutionary left’s protracted crisis is rooted in its failure to escape the “sect” form. As Hal Draper has explained, revolutionary sects are defined less by size than by their mode of organisation: a top-down culture, a haughty and exclusivist attitude towards others on the left, and a puritanical fixation on a “perfect” programme enforced by an intransigent leadership. Such groups prioritise their own growth over the needs of the wider movement and, because their unity rests on rigid doctrinal agreement, have a tendency to repeatedly split over relatively minor theoretical differences. This sect form has become the norm among Marxist organisations, leaving revolutionaries scattered across many small, largely irrelevant groups.

Ali Kadri is an esteemed Professor at various institutions around the world, as well as the author of many important books including Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment, The Accumulation of Waste: A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction, and The Unmaking of Arab Socialism.

Okay, I'll admit that I haven't finished listening to this episode yet. But what I've heard so far is excellent. A great breakdown of the role of the CPC in constraining and managing capital excesses from the Mao to Deng era and beyond.

With reactionary forces bearing down upon us, we, the children of these struggles, must take on this banner and win the war once and for all. To do so, we must develop the means to secure our survival outside of the support from the state or any liberal institution. We must develop cadres that can bring the masses into our joint struggle for liberation, underground communication networks through digital encryption and physical dropbox networks, resource depots (which will form the backbone of a logistical network) to secure the supply of necessities to the people and our revolutionary fighters, basic physical and medical educational programs so cadre are fit to engage struggle they are met with, and we must develop cells within every pore of this country from which we can mount our organized counter-attack. [...] Most of the work of a revolutionary army is logistics, followed by aiding in the work of the people by acting as a pool of concentrated labor, then engaging in direct confrontation with the enemies of the people. The People’s Liberation Army undoubtedly harvested more pounds of rice and millet than can be counted in spent bullet casings. A Communist party is nothing more than the rationalized organization of the people’s collective will, for every gain of the people is a gain for the party, for every loss of the people is a loss for the party.

I always find it enlightening that Mao's theories around guerrilla warfare mesh so well with those of Lawrence of Arabia's, as I think there's a lot to learn from both sources. Putting the organization of trans & queer liberation into these lenses aligns a lot with my feelings.

In Commemoration of the Twenty-eighth Anniversary of the Communist Party of China

classic piece, also notable in comparison to the piece right before this -- i feel like you can see the presaging of modern China in a bunch of this.

State and Capital I: Understanding How the Chinese Communist Party Has Redefined the Function, Boundaries, and Political Position of Capital

fantastic piece on the role of capital in China.