Resuscitating communism in the United States
It was the concatenation of the Cold War, the second Red Scare hysteria, and the political persecution under McCarthyism that significantly retrograded the Communist Party inside the USA (CPUSA) — both its election prospects and ideological power. With neoliberalism — that was formerly ingrained with the Volcker Shock — and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, all communist undercurrents were in effect liquidated. The rise of Fukuyamaism in the 1990s only turned communism in the US to a haunting specter that needed exorcism. With the advent of social democracy in the US political left — an achievement in its own right — and its growing recognition, the next step has to be progressed — resuscitating communism.
The term today is very controversial; it is only really accepted in academic debates, in studies, or in classroom settings. To use the term out of these contexts is uncomfortable, uneasy, mainly awkward. Both political sides repudiate it; even the DSA would not publicly endorse it. The widespread marginalization that envelops the term scares most from invoking it. Those who do, tend to be strategic about it: take the NYU professor for instance who obtained tenure before proclaiming his communist stance. There are also those who conceal their radical aims under the democratic socialist label, in order to not be censored by big media in their publications; if you don’t, one can find themselves in the position philosopher Slavoj Zizek does, whereby many western websites have already censored or prevented his essays from being uploaded given his particular communist assertions. Even personally, I observe confusion or dismay from friends and strangers that hear me discuss and support communism. The notion is truly at the base level — a zero point known as the Cartesian subject; communism has not yet risen, but is latent and ready to erupt in the US. The zero point is also advantageous since it provides a frame for universality, i.e., a beginning point from which it can be reinvented and reapplied theoretically for today’s circumstances. This is important because with all the failures of Communism in the 20th century, followers of the cause who continue in their struggle without losing hope, who have the durability to begin from the beginning repeatedly, will not disappear. Perpetually resetting doesn’t mean that all prior gains were lost nor does it imply slowing down progress in order to solidify what has been accomplished. The return to the starting point — for communism — entails a new beginning instead of trying again at the high point once reached prior, since the revolutionary process is characterized by these beginning sequences which are repeated over and over again. This imperative to restart is best encapsulated by Samuel Becket’s line in his novel Worstward Ho: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Where does one start with Communism though? How do the engines commence? One can begin first with conceptualizing a political program, which involves long-term critical thinking and assessment, in both its theoretical framework and political praxis (new organizations and alternative forms of engagement). But let’s first look at the whole reason for communism to begin with. Put simply, Communism is an eternal cause since endeavors to realize its aims have appeared for over two millennia since Plato’s philosophical contributions, to the Millenarian slave revolts, to Leninism, and so on. It is vital to discern the distinction between this type of eternalness, and the idea of communism being eternal; the second one must be rejected since it implies that the social antagonisms which create the demand for communism are themselves eternal, hence will always continue to exist. Marx himself made abundantly straightforward: communism not as an ideal, but a reactionary movement against the social antagonisms — Industrial capitalism — which necessitated the need for communism. Here we see how the communist idea becomes full circle: it keeps on preserving itself and returning even after facing multiple defeats. The paramount aims of communism can best be encapsulated by two interconnected objectives: first and foremost, to eliminate all forms of human domination, i.e. oppression and subjugation, including slavery, feudalism, market control (people forced to work whatever jobs in order to maintain subsistence, since one can only acquire all their necessary resources and products through the market), dispossession or lack of socio-political rights, etc; the second objective is the abolition of class society, whereupon socio-economic classes do not dictate one’s livelihood; both are linked to each other since they deal with the commons (shared public space of communication and social interaction in the material world), therefore class struggle cannot be eradicated if domination still occurs, and the ruling class reigns under global capitalism through its subordination of the lower classes by way of its material power and authority. The aftermath of these aims would be freedom and recognition experienced at the highest degree. There is also the complementary aim for meaningful dignified lives experienced collectively, i.e. to give one’s life common meaning as opposed to a life endured that is alienated from others — or even worse, one in which there was no meaning or dignity experienced. As Slavoj Zizek crudely denoted: communism is the state in which all people can materialize their stupid hobbies.
Younger adults In the US are becoming increasingly doubtful of capitalism’s ability to handle all the issues the world faces, and no longer see the notion of socialism as a banned topic in public. However, the reason why championing democratic socialism in the United States is insufficient is because what the DSA, Bernie Sanders and AOC strive for is a welfare state: a political program European social democracy had throughout the Cold War. This form of public administration is a great improvement to current practices and has universal application which benefits the common good; but the welfare state was deployed precisely as a method to hinder the communist threat to capitalism itself. If western countries could demonstrate their higher living standards and safety net to Really Existing Socialism in Eastern Europe, then liberal democracy and capitalism would — and did — triumph. This is also the exact reason why the welfare state has eroded since then; there was no massive political-ideological threat to capitalism post-1990s, which meant those state measures did not need to be maintained any longer. What resulted was the resurgence and growth in labor exploitation, oppression, and capital accumulation — it was Capital’s reinvigoration in power, privilege and wealth. To stress a welfare state as the end-goal is misguided since it operates within the frame of the liberal-capitalist system. Even if democratic socialism achieves the same social and economic policies that become embedded within the state institutions themselves, there are no radical social changes made nor any emancipatory potential contained within it. If democratic socialists win elections, all that will change is the political field reshifting to the left pole.
Social democracy merely initiates progressive measures: adequate taxation, good infrastructure, upholding the rule of law, affective care services, financial aid, decent housing, trade unions, worker movements, universal healthcare/education, safety net, ability to actualize one’s inner potentials and vocations; all of which alleviate in the short term the social antagonisms — ecological crisis, refugees, new forms of social control, biogenetics manipulation, mass economic/political inequality, poverty, hunger, racism/sexism — that are present, but do not cure the underlying causes which stem from global capitalism itself. Such radical global transformations needed will affect every person deeply, changing their relationship to society forever; one that will involve having their intimate beliefs and attitudes altered — their whole way of life upended to the degree that their everyday experiences change and they perceive a completely new normality. This is what is required for humanity’s collective survival.
Nevertheless, the social democrats in the US are a major first step and must be fully endorsed, especially when one considers that their political policies sincerely represent the working class: articulating their discontent and providing solutions to mitigate their struggles. The vital long-term goals that are to be accomplished with the reorganization of society begins with the social democratic foundation, because it builds towards radical political undertakings. Unconditional support therein must be given to democratic socialists, from Corbyn to Varoufakis, but chiefly to Sanders as he is its key figure within the United States. If one truly wishes to preserve the noble values and standards existent in the prior social order, it is — paradoxically — through radical social change, which all great conservatives realize, e.g. G.K. Chesterton and T.S. Elliot. Additionally, there are a proportion of radical leftists who denounce Sanders as being just a moderate European democrat that is attempting to fix capitalism in order to have it function more effectively, but what they miss is that — for the time being — to represent the more radical stances — communism — immediately would be disastrous: the position will not organize the masses, thereby only further aiding the political establishment. It would only deter the masses from participating in the one single popular campaign that organizes them on behalf of socialism.
While Social democracy today is fighting to be ingrained as the befitting state model under capitalism, communism itself has already seen partial manifestations. That is to say, time and time again global Capitalism has been forced to adopt communist measures in order to stabilize and maintain its proper functioning, to which one can easily ascertain these practices occurring in the US by observing the 2008 global recession and 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns: both economic recessions featured universalized private property by way of the Federal Reserve injecting trillions in massive subsidies into the financial markets (the state intervened and socialized private industry). The pandemic also led to multiple industries being nationalized under Trump as a means to mass produce and hoard medical supplies; while under Biden, there were large vaccine and testing initiatives, in addition to pandemic checks being implemented. These series of events would have been viewed as inconceivable prior to the crises transpiring, and subsequent public approval for these types of procedures — such as nationalization and fast mobilization of resources — would have been disregarded as utopian socialist dreams. Hence, if there’s one great thing that could have come out of the pandemic, it is this tendency towards communism. Of course, the pandemic has also operated to the opposite extreme: greater wealth/income inequality, increased scale in poverty/homelessness, etc. But these once believed impractical demands — social solidarity, safety net, elimination of individual debt — now share during the age of the pandemic a large consensus, with the widely accepted idea that universal healthcare is needed not only at the nation-state level but worldwide too. All countries must have the capacity to effectively combat future medical disasters and other ecological catastrophes through robust coordination and mobilization. Did Covid-19 nationalism not make this all the clearer when advanced states were hoarding the vaccines? Or now with the Ukraine invasion, global shipments of wheat grain that poor populations across Africa and Asia rely on for their own means of income and sustenance are significantly impacted; driving mass hunger and social unrest. This makes all the more evident that egalitarian, universal access to resources (a return of the commons) must be organized and guided at the international level, not because they are commodities or privileges that everyone in a market should have access to, but because they are basic features of human rights.
It is crucial to look at these tendencies towards communism a bit closer. In capitalism, there are these tendential laws which reflect the instabilities innate to the system, a logic Marxism used in its theoretical development of its critique of the political economy. Marx was perceptible to the tendency of the general falling rate of profit: not that profit rates automatically fall but that there are tendencies of such which activate long-term struggles by capitalist forces to resist these tendencies. Marx is not deterministic here, because he affirms that the outcome of this tendency depends on the result of the ensuing struggle that takes place. He invokes class struggle as the contradiction — antagonism — which is further aggravated when declines in profit margins forces capitalists to worsen the exploitation of workers which leads to labor resistance, and this ensuing struggle remains open: it can, as an example, conclude with labor unions compelling firms to adopt better working conditions, or workers are replaced with new ones who are desperate for money and forcibly accept their intensive labor setting and underpay. Marx also knew full well that in the short-term, the profit rate can increase exponentially, but these achievements are simply responses to the broad tendency. Likewise, the majority public in the US alone have in recent years expressed their favor of Medicare for all and limitations on market powers — pursuits that point further to the communist tendency. While not to the same degree, a proportion of the public also understand that there is no return to the pre-covid state of affairs, as there are too many global issues that the market and liberal democratic processes have failed to overcome. The new normality must consist of greater social control over the entire capitalist economy, which would introduce a proper political economy in the US. by simply analyzing China, their social control over the economy prevented significant deaths and infection rates, leading to an impressive recovery from the pandemic. What the US is to learn from China is the market economy will inevitably suffer regardless of how well it is working, and it is more important to freeze it indefinitely until the virus is maintained, from which normal economic activities can resume. What makes this communist tendency powerful is that it does not need to be actively preserved — it will subsist on its own through future catastrophes that will thrive under global capitalism. One might construe then that the current situation under global capitalism seems hopeless and ineffectual, but this sense of despair can generate a sort of determination to defeat such a predicament through active intention. Things that appear improbable — under global capitalism — are still actively struggled for nonetheless. While communism can only function at the global level, i.e., through global political efforts with the authority to impose its power over markets, it still remains unsolved how it is to gain traction in the US.
Vivek Chibber offers a wonderful explanation of how such a process begins. Firstly, with any ideology, whether that’s capitalism or communism, the basis for its substantial effectiveness is when it becomes internalized into the social body. As Mark Fisher elucidated in Capitalist Realism, this widespread adoption is marked by the ideology being perceived not as a belief/value, but as a factual truth itself. Alenka Zupanic supplements this lesson by teaching us that the reality principle — psychoanalytic theory concerning how current social reality is viewed as natural — is the leading form of ideology, since it makes the general public perceive current capitalist reality as an intrinsic way of life that unveils itself as empirically (or socially, economically, politically, biologically) true, inevitable, and regarded as non-ideological. By presenting its arrangement of society as a natural way of life, the majority believe capitalism to be the only successful way for arranging the production and distribution process, i.e. the category of economics is interchangeable and equivalent to capitalism for most. This is where ideology functions at its maximal extent, and consequently achieves its greatest success; thereby reproducing the system. The elementary goal therein for advancing the communist cause or emancipatory efforts overall is to expose the falsity of this perception that the current political-economic order is intrinsic — that all its functions and effects that are viewed as destined are actually just conditional (dependent on the social order at a given time) — along with altering the beliefs surrounding what is considered infeasible to be instead a possibility (capitalism itself has done this already with neoliberalism). Better put, as Herbert Marcuse outlined: “discovers the factors which made the facts, which determined the way of life.”
Chibber details that for any ideology to be advanced, the groundwork commences with ideological critique. It is used to promote class struggle (towards communism) that revolves around and is based upon the working class’s material interests; such a process is how workers become organized and form wide-scale movements, since they begin developing socio-political solidarity around their goals. This strong bond allows them to assume all the great risks, efforts, sacrifices, and radical transformations that could come about from their organization, but the bond remains despite this since it creates a mutual identity that all are attached to. Such active ideological undertakings would function as the mighty force that underlies workers in defeating many of the impasses — social and economic constraints and circumstances — facing worker movements and their political engagement today.
This ideological struggle is one of, if not, the most crucial conflict today, because as noted above, the ideology that is dominant — known as the hegemonic ideology — dictates the frame in which people perceive and experience their reality, including the preconceptions about different concepts, such as the idea of democratic participation itself and what it means in practice. The hegemonic ideology therein is what establishes normality in a given state of affairs, so attempts to popularize communism in the US invariably involves contending for the hegemonic ideology. This requires much political and theoretical work for its ideological critique. Radical leftists — or any communist for that matter — should not expect quick results nor rush some program, because if there’s one thing the 20th century taught us, it is that mankind tried to change the world too quickly. People must take a step back to appropriately analyze the situation, which includes examining not only the predominant ideological functions of the system, but how these mechanisms dictate the scope of people’s actions. Hence, to broach a communist ideological struggle gets underway with a theoretical edifice: as Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming put it: “knowledge is the beginning of action, and action the completion of knowledge.”
To resist the capitalist hegemonic ideology does not merely infer altering someone’s beliefs and perception, since what one thinks is a concealment (and justification) of one’s actual actions. To progress the emancipatory effort against the hegemonic ideology — especially when its main form today is cynicalism — requires both changing one’s thoughts (forming the socio-political unity around the communist ideology) and more importantly, one’s everyday actions. Furthermore, the hegemonic ideology is not about legitimizing which one is right or wrong; while I would assert communism to be a much superior system in nearly all dimensions to capitalism, the ideological battle is not about which system is better based on “objective conditions”. After all, communism originates out of the subjective position of an individual impacted by their material conditions and subsequent effects in capitalist society.
One of the biggest problems for communists today is how many refuse to accept the horrors it produced in the 20th century; mainly Stalinism. The usual outline of defense is that Stalinism had no elements of communism (misapplication of Marxism), or that what occurred was a circumstantial anomaly given the surrounding factors; even worse, that Fascism, Nazism, and liberal capitalism are just as bad social orders. Is that really the hill communists want to die on? If this is the best communists can come up with, that of pointing out the atrocities of other systems, then communists have a lot more to worry about then just trying to overcome global capitalism.
While these counter-arguments are objectively true, Communists have to admit that Stalinism is both: the worst manifestation in the communist legacy, and that such a possibility of totalitarianism is located within the kernel of Marxism. To put it another way, Stalinism is by no stretch of the imagination the innate outcome of communist societies, but due to Marxism’s pure emancipatory goals it runs the big risk of regressing into its complete reversal — terror. The German philosopher Georg Hegel already indicated this occurrence of ‘necessary reversal’ with the French Revolution: the goals of the forcible overthrow of the government were to implement fundamental human rights and freedoms in society, but this emancipatory effort reversed into the Reign of Terror and French Empires. What Stalinism did moreover, was backstab the communist project; not only by embracing state capitalism, but by conducting systematic political repression against communist themselves. The ideals, the eternal aims of communism, were obliterated. What Bolsheviks and European communists constituted was the revolutionary group that were to finally prevail in the long line of historical efforts to eradicate all forms of disenfranchisement and indignity. They knew full well that the type of society purported by communism would hold the highest degree of living and moral standards, to which it would be subject to these same judgements and scrutiny if it failed to realize those benchmarks. Yet, they fully embraced these efforts nonetheless since it was the goal of communism. Bini Adamczak eloquently explains this in her book Yesterday’s Tomorrow: the Bolsheviks and European communists were fighting for a future that was lost during the events that unfolded in Stalinism. This future, the communist one, will have no chance if it is not reconfigured for today’s backdrop, a reinvention that thinkers Slavoj Zizek and Bini Adamczak have offered.
Now back to the US. To resuscitate communism will be challenging, but the political engagement must be concentrated around class struggle. The country is unique given its background of racism, of which the principal contradiction — antagonism — is racism and not class struggle, which conveys that in order to advance class struggle it must prioritize efforts to oppose racism as well. In the US, conversations about class struggle cannot be appropriately conducted without mentioning the subjugation and exploitation of black people; to center on utter class struggle unattached from skin color helps to benefit class oppression. This is not to say that leftist efforts are to be centered around race while discounting other struggles — leave that to the liberal left who already do that with identity politics. It means that communism in the US has to reestablish its links to the historically oppressed and exploited; what it already accomplished back in the early 1900s with its sustained activities in opposing racial segregation, e.g., the Scottsboro Boys trial. Communists ought to form chains of equivalence among all those afflicted by class struggle, the entire proletariat (referring to all those in the working class, including the underclass and structurally unemployed, refugees/homeless, and nomadic laborers) base, because such measures were victorious in the United States before. The 1960s-1970s was a battleground between big capital and the working class, with workers achieving greater labor conditions and rights through their nationwide strikes and demonstrations than ever before. The demographic among them being of various races and ethnicities. However, with the culturalization of politics in Post-Fordism, the situation is different now. The democratic establishment (Democratic Party) intently focuses on tolerance, multiculturalism, and identity politics: a depoliticized party that deliberately avoids the underlying causes of political and economic inequality, exploitation, class divisions, etcetera, because that would involve dissenting against their campaign donors.
On the other left half, black Marxist philosopher Adolph Reed demonstrates the Democratic Socialists are too entranced by the race conflict, extremely focused on socio-economic disparities faced by black people and minorities, which inhibits greater working class solidarity in a country that features tremendous economic inequality and hardships for all backgrounds. Reed apprehends that class struggle achievements stem from oppositions in which the working class and poor people of all races fought together — mutual struggle — for their labor and economic rights. What Reed and other black Marxists like Cornel West stress is that effective social progress is rooted in its universal application, whereas focalizing on racial disparities strengthens class divide and prevents worker alliances — emancipatory efforts are stifled as a result since it lacks the universal dimension.
This is what makes Bernie Sanders so crucial to the US left: he is able to capture the white working class voterbase — among large minority support — since he understands class struggle is universal and not particular; it is a common denominator to any identity. This is why Sanders was firm when he urged the left to stop focusing on gaining the centrist vote, not comprehending that by going toward the extreme of one side is exactly how Trump won. The left tried to please so many different voters instead of sticking to their side, causing a considerable number of members to recant. Sanders knew the target audience should be poor working class voters that were seduced into voting for Trump; it is obvious why then so many would-be rightwing voters supported Sanders instead.
Sanders is unique in that he directly addresses people’s concerns and illustrates real care towards their economic difficulties, which equates to dignity and respect for them. This is what ordinary people appreciate and seek in their political representatives: they are responsive to leaders that can directly address their daily struggles and material interests, relating them on a much deeper level since they identify with their economic struggles. Trump was triumphant for the same reasons: regardless of how insincere his intentions were (he represented big capital and is a member himself), the majority of his supporters were working class people because he spoke directly to their worries. Trump and Sanders backers are fiercely loyal because of this acute resonance. Additionally, Sanders in a certain way has co-opted Nixon’s personification of the silent moral majority: he represents the US moral majority by actually acting on behalf of ordinary Americans; standing for common decency, social justice, honesty, integrity, and so on. Through this, Sanders was able to consolidate many of the left’s votes (they are the majority in comparison to the right in the US), thereby proving he is the only leftist political figure that has the ability to mobilize the masses.
This is what communists have to venture towards: organizing the populace around goals which serve to benefit their material interests in the long term (which promotes their class struggle), not only because it’s the communist desire to do so, but more importantly because communism is the only acceptable response left to the problems caused by global capitalism today. The communist movement in the US will gradually expand insofar as it explicates a straightforward vision of society that serves everyone — no one is to be excluded, including those that lack any formally established position within the social body and add no productive value to the economy (underclass, refugees, homeless). The egalitarian component in communism is pronounced here. In ancient Greece, democracy was the name given to the excluded subjects who trespassed into the socio-political domain, having no proper role within it. Communism battles for their universality; their inclusion within mainstream society. This is where the communist tenet of egalitarian justice is actualized. In this way radical social change can emerge, and being able to publicly claim in the United States that one is a communist without being ostracized would be highly indicative.
