The Current Dilemma of the Ruling Class in the United States ☭
A Dash Dialectic, by Dash the Internet Marxist (/u/theDashRendar)
Special thanks to: DonkeyChonker, Gatorguard, ScienceSleep99, mikeCNFI, Zhang_Chunqiao, and Psy1
the Problem (for the bourgeoisie):
Protests and demonstrations on a scale never seen before in the United States against police brutality and racism have erupted over the death of George Floyd. Only one of the four officers involved is facing any charges and even that stands at just a slap on the wrist. The protesters are now grappling for control of entire areas within the city, and police forces are stretched to their capacity. For the first time in American history, the American bourgeoisie are at risk of losing control of the situation.
This dialectic demonstrates the dilemma that they now find themselves in and why they have largely been paralyzed in responding to these protests that are drawing incredible popular support from the masses. So for the American ruling class, the rich overlords of our rent and debt and employment, known more simply to us as the bourgeoisie . . . what is to be done?
Why not simply arrest all four of the police officers involved and throw the book at them? It was explicitly a murder, and four policemen seem small compared to the scope of these enormous protests.
UPDATE (Jun 4): As some readers have noted — there have now been charges laid against all four officers. However, this is not unexpected, as laying charges against officers has been used to quell protests before, only to later see those charges dropped. Convictions of officers is virtually unheard of, and the protesters seem to be well aware of it. If the protests die down, one will expect to see charges dropped in a matter of months.
The problem here is that this would be an explicit betrayal of the police from the bourgeoisie. For you see, the police are the primary domestic tool (a ‘repressive state apparatus’) of the bourgeoisie, which they use for the protection of their property and repression of the masses. However, there is a level of trust requirement between the police and the bourgeoisie that runs both ways.
It has long been established that white supremacists have not only infiltrated but overrun the majority of American police institutions. George Floyd is not an isolated incident, and there are countless thousands of George Floyds in the USA who never had their murders captured on camera. Many thousands of officers are well aware of the crimes of Derek Chauvin because they partake in them, themselves, or, at the least, are unbothered by their occurrence.
So, if the bourgeoisie were to ‘hang’ four of their own police protectors for this crime of white supremacy, therein is the betrayal to the rest of the racist, fascist police force and their crooked, rotten police system. If this racist, fascist police force feels betrayed (or abandoned or sold out) by those that they protect, they might not be inclined to continue to put their lives on the line in these grueling 15 hour protest days to protect the bourgeoisie. Hell, some of them might even join the protesters! The bourgeoisie would no longer have their first line of defense in place, and all of their property, their means of production, and their positions of power would be — temporarily at least — exposed and vulnerable.
So, no, the capitalist state is incapable of bringing justice for George Floyd. Indeed, they have already doubled down, with utterly dubious evidence that was rushed from the coroner’s office and attempting to sell a narrative that well respected and beloved community man George Floyd died not from nine agonizing minutes of a knee to the neck, but some imagined, yet to be identified, intoxicants. This crooked evidence threatens to undermine any sort of judicial process, and with the charges currently standing at manslaughter, it is unlikely that Chauvin will endure more than a couple years of actual jail time, if that.
No more racist cops is not an option for the bourgeoisie.
I don’t get it? Surely even the other cops — even the racist ones — can see the scale and scope of this situation, and understand that four of their worst have got to face consequences for their actions and what they set off.
To the Police, they absolutely can not and will not — because it sets of a world-ending (to them) precedent. In the exact same way that this is about more than just George Floyd for the protesters, this is about more than just Derek Chauvin and friends for the cops. It was Fidel Castro, who famously said “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle, a fight to the death, between the future and the past.” The protesters are fighting for our future, and the police are protecting their past, and for those who have not yet chosen a side, the hour is coming when you too will have to take a stand.
But this unknown future presents great danger. If justice can come for those four cops, which officer might be next? Any of them? More of them? All of them? Who is to say that justice — especially justice against crimes of white supremacy — may not also come for them as well! What else have they gotten away with that might be looked at again and reviewed after this? If this white supremacist crime can be brought to justice, what about the numerous other recent ones that were not? That is a haunting and terrifying realization for nearly all the police officers. If these four guys have to answer for what they did, what will stop these same protesters from investigating and seeking justice for even more white supremacy crimes.
It’s a slippery slope to hell and the police are at the edge because it is their ‘life’ on the line too. This is why the cops are so crazed and so absolute about this. They have been preparing for this. This is why they are all, almost unanimously and collectively, digging in their heels to fight the protesters. In the same way that all the protesters marching are George Floyd, all of the the cops mobilizing in the streets are Derek Chauvin. But where the police fight on behalf of the oppressors, upholding injustice and racism, and to protect the cozy, propertied lives of the wealthy, Black Lives Matter is fighting for the oppressed, literally for the right to breathe.
June 4 UPDATE: As of June 4, charges have now been laid against all four officers
So then why not go the opposite direction? Why not simply denounce the protests and protesters, and allowed the police to ‘crack some skulls’ — not shooting them, but using force and making arrests at will?
As it stands, this is more or less what the bourgeoisie would like to do, and are attempting to do in some areas, as it would force the protesters back into their homes, take back control of the streets, and sufficiently suppress the protesters enough to attempt to resume normality. This was largely how they have handled major protests of this scale in years past. However, it is exactly here that the American bourgeoisie have encountered a problem — one that they have never quite encountered or experienced before, and for which they have no immediate solution.
The scale of these protests is so much larger than they can manage. Even though they have the capacity to arrest tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands nationally, there are millions of people out in the streets. Not only do they lack the capacity to “arrest all of us,” the sheer quantity of people makes it difficult to even make arrests, as the police are losing or have lost control of the situation in many areas. Police are also being met with resistance from transit unions and other members of the working class, the proletariat, refusing to cooperate with the police, and defying the will of their masters.
Despite attempts from media outlets and reactionary pundits to demonize the protests as looting and chaos, they are instead being met with substantial support from the public and even some major public figures. Recent targets of American hostilities have finally been given opportunity to bite back. The international community, too, overwhelmingly supports the protesters, leaving the bourgeoisie and their police protectors on a small island of clout (yet filled with enormous amounts of private property). The protests are simply too popular to denounce directly.
Of course, leftist organizations immediately threw their weight behind the protests, adding their voices to the struggle. Perhaps most impressively, Black Lives Matter has managed to temporarily end the conflict between Marxists and Anarchists, who had been at one another’s throats for nigh on three years, since the initial Left Unity anti-Trump coalition broke down. The disputes between them are not resolved, mind you, merely less important than the immediate struggle. In leading this revived Left Unity movement, Black Lives Matter has also become the glue holding the factions together.
The silence elsewhere speaks volumes. Politicians, white suburbanites, celebrities, corporate leaders, businessmen, and many other private organizations are all quietly making distractions for themselves. The more sinister ones speak at great length about looters, yet have little to say of George Floyd. Perhaps the more moderate or well-mannered can muster a mild tweet or statement condemning racism (“racism is bad, y’all” — I cannot remember if this came from Justin Trudeau or the Arby’s twitter as a response, with all the same courage and boldness of the eye-rolling 2004 film Crash). But otherwise, very little has been said about the protests or the protesters themselves, from any establishment segment of society. Much like the bourgeoisie, many of these suburban onlookers are clutching their pearls and secretly rooting against the protesters, but are drowned out by the overwhelming masses supporting Black Lives Matter and this overwhelming protest.
Why am I not seeing the real scale of the protest everywhere is the media? This is happening all over the United States, but the news is focusing on distractions. Are these protests really that big of a deal?
Firstly, for those who do not yet appreciate the level of American media deception and duplicity, and who have not done so already, I strongly invite you to turn on a livestream (google “protest livestream”) to get an actual sense of the size and volume of people in the streets. But I suspect this isn’t what is not what is being depicted on your nightly TV news, and certainly not to the accurate scale. There is a stark contrast between the vast array of livestreams from dozens of different cities with thousands of people on the streets every night, versus the nightly news treating this protest as if it were a single isolated event, or a disconnected chain. If this was a hurricane or a sporting event or a Black Friday sale, the media would be providing live 24-hour coverage, but can scarcely spare more than ten minutes of their broadcast hour for the protests. Quite so, the media is already hiding acts of police brutality, and staging peaceful photo opportunities (that will no doubt be used to re-write a “proper” bourgeois narrative later on) followed by attacks on the protesters! I have no doubt the media will explain to us why the police must brutalize protesters when a brick is thrown, but when will the media ask “from where do bricks come?” First the weather.
For the few non-Marxists reading this, something to be made clear is that the media is owned and controlled by the same corporations, the same people belonging to the same “rich people only” club known as the bourgeoisie. And they are the ones who own and control the media. These are the same people who decide what content is shown and is not shown, and how that content is presented to the public. They have no interest in sharing with you a situation in which they do not yet have control. One which might turn on them. They will never share or fairly present information that threatens their position. These are the same people whom the police are protecting. These are the same people who are fine with the knees of the police on your neck.
Ironically, this is where Trump’s rivalry with the media, focusing not on his policy but his presentation, has lead to a beyond farcical distrust of the media from the public. “FAKE NEWS,” he (correctly, but inaccurately) decried at the gormless shills, as the public played ‘spot the fake news’ along with him, until no member of the public (save the neoliberals, the shills most lacking in gorm) could possibly trust or believe the information presented by the news. Trump’s vanity and haphazard arrogance is now backfiring against the bourgeoisie, as their most potent tool of control is left firing blanks. The most trusted names in news are now zonked out lanky stoners with wifi.
So why not pull the police back? Take a more hands-off approach, tell the cops to hold back, give the protesters more room, and more space, and hope that the movement will eventually burn itself out and die?
The catch here is that this is not a benign protest. Unlike most (not all) protests of the recent American memory , this is not a protest to which you parade your enormous George W. Bush puppet, or bring the kids and grandma and turn it into a picnic. This is a very angry protest (and rightfully so!) and with the amount of fully justified anger and rage at: not just at the officers that killed George Floyd, not just the racist, fascist police system, but the entire establishment that they protect.
And with that anger, combined with the sheer scale and ferocity of the protests, comes that most sacrilegious and terrifying phrase to the bourgeoisie, “property damage.” The scale of property damage cannot be overstated — not because the protesters are burning the city to the ground (quite the contrary, only a handful of buildings have been destroyed nationwide so far) but because this threatens to deal a critical blow to the control of cities, the streets, and the means of production within the United States.
While we are still only one week into the protests, they are showing no signs of dying out until justice is served. In fact, there are signs that they are escalating. If the protesters are capable of over running a police precinct — literally the enforcer-repressor base of operations in the area — they are also able to overrun an Amazon warehouse, a superstore, a stadium, a mall (the once holy church of capitalism) or even a factory or large business. Imagine the terror of the Wal-Mart manager if the protests come bursting through those sliding glass doors and, and the employees too, join them in revolt!
Indeed, giving the protesters space could very well dissipate a movement whose concerns were wishes or conveniences or ideals. However, this is a movement whose concerns are grounded in material oppression, and as the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists correctly pointed out — revolutions begin not where capitalism is most advanced, but where the oppression is greatest. And there is no greater oppression in America now than the knees of the police on the necks of our Black brothers and sisters. These protests will (hopefully, and theoretically) not stop without justice.
All the other protests in recent memory have fizzled out in a few days. Why wont this one fizzle out? How come this one might be ‘the beginnings of a revolution?’ What’s different this time?
We live in two separate realities at the moment, and they are on a collision course. There is a reality in which America is a kind and good place, a few jagged edges and flaws, but overall good and good to most of its people. This is a reality that has spent the COVID epidemic watching Netflix, drinking expensive wine, playing violent video games, and demanding businesses reopen, so that the proles that serve them can resume their servitude. In this reality, if you are not already one of the reactionary Trump supporters, then Joe Biden is a perfectly viable political candidate to defeat Trump, and you are confident that his (never to be achieved — no doubt posthumously blamed on the Russians again) victory would return America to this place of goodness. To them, Trump must be the cause of these societal ills, and his removal will make the problems disappear, when in reality he is merely a symptom.
These people are oblivious, deliberately or otherwise, to the other reality, that has existed in the first’s dark and dreary shadow for some time. In this reality, Joe Biden might as well be the corpse from Weekend At Bernies at their backyard pool party. These privileged shits go out and wonder why the protesters do not simply return to their homes, and allow this movement die out. They have no conception of the struggles the poor masses in America face. No conception of how they have been marginalized for decades, over and over, the ground beneath them taken away until there is nowhere left to stand, and still more footing is taken away from them, as they are forced to watch one another fall off the edge, and forced to claw at one another for bourgeois table scraps. In this bleak reality, America is and always has been a racist genocidal slaver nation, one that has continued this trend for 250 years with little interruption. To the first reality George Washington was an inspired hero, and to the other he was an oppressive slaver. These two Americas may not coexist peacefully much longer.
It must be asked, to what home do these poor masses now have to return to. Do they return to the $1200 cheque that never arrived yet, and probably never will for them? Do they return to the abusive $6/hr job that they lost two months ago? Do they return to watch a family member die a painful death to an out of control pandemic disease that could have easily been prevented? Do they return to the coming evictions at the start of this month or next? Do they return to the unpaid credit card debt, compounding beyond any impoverished person’s ability to pay? Do they return to being murdered in the streets, day in and day out, conceding a victory to the fascists now gassing them?! All of these problems and more are boiling over right now — for many of them, there is simply nowhere left for them to retreat to.
What about making concessions to the protesters? Or a big social program? If the bourgeoisie cannot put the racist police behind jail, can they not, at least, offer concessions to the protesters and those suffering at the bottom?
Historically, this was one of the ways in which the United States has managed to ameliorate protests of this magnitude in the past. The last time concessions of this nature was under Richard Nixon, the conniving shitlord emperor himself. This did not occur because Nixon was moved by the protests touching speeches and glowing hearts, but because he believed he might otherwise end up guillotined on the White House lawn. This resulted in the very last meaningful additions to the social safety net, long since shredded and plucked down to but a few remaining tattered threads, which have long since let millions of Americans plummet to their death.
In a deep irony, concessions would, at this point, be the most likely-to-succeed alternative to bringing the police to justice. But also, at this point, the concessions would have to be so significant and so enormous, as to forever change and improve the lives of millions of people — especially in the black community, whom the state has largely abandoned. $1200 cheques for everyone will not cut it by a longshot (with no mention of the white backlash, who are unbothered by corporations looting billions, but could not possibly tolerate a free month of rent for the poor), and should such an insubstantial, insulting offering of this nature be made, it would likely only escalate the protests further.
We are fortunate, in this case, that no clear leadership has emerged in the protests, as it makes the old bourgeois trick of ‘buying the leadership’ a non-option, as there is no one with the reigns to co-opt this movement (yet!) This movement will eventually be exposed to this and will ultimately, at some point of escalation, require a leadership body to orchestrate the masses in unison. The leadership must come from people of colour, from the oppressed segments of society, but we hope, also, for those versed in Marxist theory, to thwart any attempt to co-opt, mislead, or buy out and diffuse this very charged, very radical movement. Indeed, many would be co-optors are already falling by the wayside, as right-leaning celebrities and opportunists calling for and end to the protests go ignored by the much wiser masses.
The beautiful tragedy, of course, is that the horrified bourgeoisie, lead by their chief administrator, the egomaniacal Donald Trump, are all but incapable of making the necessary concessions for peace. Trump’s ego is too large and his perspective too far gone to possibly consider taking a massive “L” to these defiant protesters. There is only one direction that he will apply pressure — downwards! — and should that fail to work he will try and apply more. And the bourgeoisie (if they even have the liquidity, as many have already seen their vast fortunes shrivel to the lost months of productivity from the pandemic) are too unwilling to eat the costs of the massive social programs that might reprieve the miserable existence of the poor. They, of course, have no issue with spending ten times that amount to repress the rebelling masses.
What about Donald Trump? If he is the ‘Chief Administrator’ for the bourgeoisie, and manages their affairs, what is his role in all of this? What about his supporters?
Strangely, the Trump-supporter worldview may be more grounded in reality than the liberal worldview at this point — but it is merely a twisted, inverted mirror image of the actually existing Marxist reality. They are now well aware of this shocking new threat to their comfortable existence — their investments, their cherished businesses (much more cherished than people!), their “passive income,” and their vast tracks of property — that this movement now poses. Their understandings and explanations of this emerging movement are, of course, filled with ideological and conspiratorial nonsense to fill the explanatory gaps — for example, the protests are too popular to denounce, so Trump instead directs hostilities at an imagined ANTIFA leadership that does not exist. In declaring ANTIFA terrorists, he has given himself legal permission to violently repress any and all of the protesters. Indeed, in response to the ANTIFA menace (properly read, any human with a pulse) fascists have already begun congregating in reaction. These unrepentant racists are well and fully aware that America was and is a nation built on slavery, racism, and genocide. It is just that they celebrate this fact, rather than experiencing the revulsion that any human with a shred of decency should feel.
But these fascists do understand their newfound precarious situation, and we can take heart in the fact that they are also losing control, (in fact, at the exact same rate that we proletarians have begun to take it back!). And if there were a modern incarnation of Tsar Nicolas II, the reactionary monarch who consistently made every possible incorrect, vain, and cruel decision to exacerbate revolution — it would be Donald Trump, and we must find comfort in this. His pride is too large and important for him to stand down, his ignorance too great to possibly realize the consequences of his bad decisions, his decadence and corruption have left his administration inept, and his overconfidence blinding him to the exposed decay and rot at the core of the very idea of American exceptionalism. With each new tweet, America descends deeper into fascism.
America may never recover from this. That does not mean it is a deathblow, far from it, but the bourgeoisie may suffer actual, lasting, meaningful damage to the American Empire. And the damage came not from the mighty Soviet Arsenal, nor the limitless industry of China, nor ruthless German banking, but from a force (wrongly!) perceived to be infinitely weaker. The first ideological salvo has been fired and scored a hit, shot by those who have suffered the most and longest at the hands of the American Empire. George Floyd is now immortalized, the “George Floyd Protests” a turning point of American history (where to is still yet to be decided), but millions of Americans will never think and act quite the same ever again. Take great satisfaction in this moment of chaos before the reckoning, as the bourgeoisie find themselves caught on the back-foot, while the oppressed masses take back their streets. In case liberalism has left you numb to the world, that feeling in your temples and cheeks and neck and shoulders and spine and mouth — that’s what justice feels like. The bourgeoisie cannot stand the taste but the starved proletariat is hungry for more!
OK, so the police can’t back off, and they can’t do enough to suppress the protests. And they won’t bring the cops to justice. So, what happens if the police or the military do as Trump suggested in his tweet, and started shooting?
This has likely been under consideration from the very first night and increasing in probability with each night that follows. The first real bullets have already let fly, and the once peaceful streets of America begin to resemble the countless nations that they “liberated.” The protesters absolutely will be forced to retreat (at least temporarily) if enough bullets fly. However, there is no certain outcome from this extremely dangerous and terrible course of action for the police, and comes with it enormous risks for the bourgeoisie (indeed, perhaps the first real risk that many of these self-avowed “risk takers” have ever actually had to take).
Even in the best-worst-case scenario (which would suggest only a tiny massacre), where the police merely pop a few volleys, down a handful of protesters, and hope the crowds are repressed into their homes out of fear of the bullets (we can only guess as to what follows when the triggers are pulled)—but America will still never be again be the same place. Indeed, many of the people in the streets, as well as for the infinitely many victims of American imperialism around the globe, they are already far too aware that America was a nation built on slavery and genocide and capitalist oppression. However, for sizable middle class in America (the irritable cushion that insulates the bourgeoisie from the poor), this would shatter the United States of their imaginations forever. Quite so, it may have already.
Many of the aforementioned people, still at home, are also those that still envision America as the wise and noble people that recruit Tom Cruise to save the world from dastardly Russians using F-14s and motorcycles in movies. To demonstrate to these people, that they too, live under the tyranny they only imagine in foreign countries is to add fuel to the even larger and more catastrophic risk being taken by the bourgeoisie. Many of the most backwards and reactionary will join the side of police, if they have not already, but a proper mismanagement by the incontinent Trump administration could radicalize support in the opposite direction, reinforcing the protesters. The larger risk, that they are all too frighteningly aware of if that, if they continue to escalate state violence, they might create a scenario where they could lose.
Not only police being overrun by angry protest mobs, but protesters responding with guns of their own. What began as a protest would quickly be followed by global condemnations of the United States, sanctions, and even possibly more violent responses from the protesters. The sheer number of people could be too much for the police to handle, and bringing in the military could result in a de facto civil war. To pour some additional matches on this bed of gasoline and dynamite and half the world’s nukes, the United States is now deploying Blackwater Mercenaries against protesters. Indeed, we all owe Metal Gear Solid 4 an apology for criticizing its “far fetched” premise. But the danger for the bourgeoisie is that they risk a situation in which they have no guarantee of victory.
But what is the American Military going to end up doing? Are soldiers really going to be involved in these attacks on the protesters? Could American soldiers really be willing to kill American people?
There is an interesting parallel here, with regard to the military and the very real possibility (near certainty, with all other options being exhausted, failing, or too demanding of the bourgeoisie for their comfort) that the state will use violence (shooting violence) to suppress the protests. There is one strange historical occurrence for Marxist revolutionaries, that has yet to have it’s historical follow up — that of the Russian revolution. In all of the other Marxist revolutions, the military sided with the state and the capitalists, and the Marxists were forced to combat and overcome the military, or be destroyed.
But, during the Russian revolution, there was a period in which Kerensky, the relative centrist between Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the reactionary Tsarists, presided over a dysfunctional, collapsing Russian government. In much the same way, the US Army might become dangerously radicalized like the Russian Army did during the July Days, where it split into Bolsheviks and Fascists with the centre (Kerensky) having no loyal units after the fact. We too, can expect Biden to become a minor footnote of history in the struggle, but as he has already demonstrated, he is incapable of leadership or relevancy. The rest of the useless, complicit, criminal Democrats have already thrown their backs behind the President as well. While the pessimistic among us expect all American military assets to obey their orders (indeed, “just following them”) there is a grave ideological obstacle in asking American soldiers to massacre American citizens — one that has potential to lead to military desertion and defection.
The fact that the bourgeoisie could lose control of (even a small part) of an instrument of power as large as the military would be quite a shock. There are plenty of fascists within the American military (especially the Air Force), but the white supremacy has not yet reached the same heights as the domestic police force. It’s easy enough to convince naive 18 year olds that America fights for liberty, and that foreigners hate them for their freedoms, or other immaterial nonsense, but will have a harder time selling the same narrative about their own families and friends. A military disruption that destabilizes or even collapses just some of the 800+ overseas American bases would be among the greatest gifts Marxists worldwide could ever ask for. In liberating themselves, Black Americans may also be a leading force in liberating the entire global proletariat from American oppression.
So what about the fascists? What about the white supremacists and klansmen? They are watching this too. What is their role to play in this conflict? And what is a revolution — if this is one — supposed to do next?
The historical precedent of the extremely radical Protests of ’68 were followed by a far-right Nixon landslide victory later that year. Trump’s electoral victory is already assured, as he has an established base, gritting their teeth at home as they still sit silent on the protesters. They have become all too quick to condemn the “looters,” (never ‘liberators’ or ‘expropriators,’ much more accurate terms!), and had spent most of the preceding months demanding their restaurants re-open and retweeting “All Lives Matter,” (until they realized they were blowing the dog whistle too loud). We are fortunate that the fascists overplayed their hand in Charlottesville, as it brought enough new consternation and condemnation of fascism to slow their rapid advance. But now their numbers will swell again.
White Americans, even many of those oh-so-progressive, oh-so-polite, oh-so-sweet Americans with well wishes and kind words, with their entrepreneurial spirit and can-do attitude, who overtly and enthusiastically have supported Biden or other Democrats to this point, will likely find themselves not merely voting for, but feverishly yearning for Donald Trump come this November. Contrary to the liberal worldview, we are not merely in a state of misalignment or misunderstanding. Rather, we understand one another perfectly, and we exist in a state of conflict against one another. The middle ground between us collapses like an engulfed McDonalds. Indeed, many of these reactionaries have been raised on a diet of fascist video games that have already indoctrinated them to “Defend Burgertown!”
It is here, that I write with the deepest concern for my comrades. I do not wish to scare or cause panic, but we Marxists understand our fascist enemies all too well. We have fought them time and again, in country after country, and across most of the world’s continents. For all the brave protesters and resistors and revolutionaries with the courage to take this historic stand, this is a warning that must be heeded. The fascists are already planning backlash. This will come, and it will be merciless and cruel and targeted. Leaders and organizers will be their primary targets. There will be no police protection for us, and every instrument, tool, and apparatus available to the bourgeoisie could be used to find us, isolate us, and kill us. We will all die alone, unless we stand together against their retribution for our defiance.
During the coming months, the priorities of the revolution (if indeed, it is to become a revolution) must be the following: 1) The revolution must establish a clear leadership body, with specific goals and objectives. The benefit of this leaderless moment of the movement will soon expire and become a terrible burden that prevents more active organization. This movement must be lead by people of colour from the oppressed segments of society, but ideally also by those versed in Marxist theory. White Marxists should know full well that our role is to support and defend this movement, not to arrogantly take command. 2) The revolution must begin to construct an alternative form of community self defense, as soon as leadership is established. Never again should we depend on the police, but rather upon each other for protection. But this cannot be a disorganized blob of well-wishes and good intentions, but must be an organized body — something that looks and operates just like a police force, but with no police, and operating in service to the proletariat — the workers and the masses — rather than the bourgeoisie. 3) Additional parallel structures should be created at every opportunity. If there is a chance to replace a bourgeois institution with one controlled by the protesters, by the proles, it must be done. Each new institution grows the power of the proletariat and reduces the power of the bourgeoisie.
A Personal Rant from yours truly, to conclude this dialectic, not with analysis and inquiry, but with passion and fire!
Lastly, I will conclude this dialectic with an inspired rant. I have long held Marxist beliefs. And for decades, literally decades, I have heard each and every last condescending opinion, spouted by liberals, with incoherent, inconsistent worldviews about the impossibility and incorrectness of the Marxist understanding — my understanding — of the world. With the utmost confidence and assuredness, they, time and again, dismiss the prospect of the masses rising up in defiance, that it could ever happen in the United States, that revolution was completely impossible. Yet it starts to seem that very nearly anything is becoming possible. To the same skeptics and detractors and once-confident and certain liberals, does the world look quite the same from when last you spoke? To them I now say, “you might need to start believing in revolutions, because you might just be living one!”
To the arrogant bourgeoisie, who have become so careless and sloppy and reckless and greedy, I say this. Do not yet count your chickens, for this may well be the last batch of eggs you will ever see come to hatch. It turned out that history is not quite as over as the capitalist world once assured us, and with those soon-to-be liberated eggs, it is now our historical omelette in the making! History has a direction and a momentum, and you are now, once again, standing in its way. Your pathetic business empires will be rubble and ruin, your legacy and profits the forgotten achievements of a dead history. Who, after all, remembers the Confederacy’s largest plantation owner, or the most profitable American slaver? You too, are becoming despised and mocked relics in a world moving beyond you. Oh fearsome bourgeoisie, all of your best days are far behind you, long forgotten, and for that you must weep and despair!
And to you, my brave proletariat, I say this. Find your resolve, because all of our best days have yet to dawn! The bourgeoisie have stolen away tomorrow from us, so now we have no choice but to build our own! Make no mistake, this movement, as it exists yet, is not a communist movement. It is not yet, even, in certainty, a revolution, despite the vocal pleas for it to become one. But it has all the revolutionary potential energy required to become one, to become something dangerous, and we only need the proletariat to harness and release this power, but with an understanding of history and those that oppressed masses that we fight for. The tide of history may well have turned once again in our favour, but the upper hand is still a long march forward. I look to you, my fellow proles, and ask you to read your Marx. Read your Lenin. Read your Mao. The words contained are not esoteric hyperbole, but rather within are the very best knowledge and understanding to date that humans have compiled on rebellion and revolution. The quest for justice for George Floyd has become the quest for justice for the entire world! By the end of this, my fellow proletariat, you may realize that in breaking your chains, you will have liberated all of humanity with you. And before this is over, you just might believe in something dangerous! ☭
