Communism in the USA

[Shropshire Socialist]

Purely out of interest, how difficult is it to be a Communist in the USA? I understand that there are Communists there, but with the history of anti-Communism that that country has lived through, how can the Communists ever make a break through?

[Susurrus]

It's a lot harder in some places than others. It's really the fact that few actually know what communism means that is most detrimental, as in the minds of most it is a boogeyman style evil, with little political meaning attached to it. The best way to spread communism would be informing people about it and doing things to directly help people under the banner of communism.

[Mr. Cervantes]

Very difficult in my opinion even in a post - Mcarthy era.

[thesadmafioso]

Progress is being made in regards to its acceptance in the US, especially among youths who were not subjected to the American cold war propaganda machine. Though it is still without a doubt a volatile ideology in some more conservative regions of the country.

[Shropshire Socialist]

It is great that it is changing and that more and more people are open to it, especially the youth.

Is there anything that people outside the USA can do to help promote Communism there?

[RED DAVE]

Actually, unless you walking around using the word "Communist," which identifies you with the CPUSA, with its terrible reputation, and the USSR, carrying the name is not particularly difficult. I have functioned openly as a "socialist" for more than fifty years.

However, activity can get your ass in trouble. I have a bust that has been following me around for about 40 years, plus I was thrown out of graduate school for antiwar activity. I basically lost a career as a high school teacher for being a militant and a member of an opposition caucus to the UFT leadership. And I probably lost at least one other job for union organizing.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have it any other way.

RED DAVE

[x359594]

...I wouldn't have it any other way.

Kudos Dave!

I'll add that we old timers went through the era when anti-communism was the national religion of the USA, and the term "communism" was very elastic in its meaning when deployed by the right to attack its opponents.

[Reznov]

Progress is being made in regards to its acceptance in the US, especially among youths who were not subjected to the American cold war propaganda machine. Though it is still without a doubt a volatile ideology in some more conservative regions of the country.

I have to disagree, most "Leftists" I have met are merely Che Guevara shirt hipsters who claim they read his diary, and say that they have never read Marx and think that Lenin is "too hard-line communist and true communism can never work", which mind fucks me because they say they support it yet don't believe it is possible.

[thesadmafioso]

I have to disagree, most "Leftists" I have met are merely Che Guevara shirt hipsters who claim they read his diary, and say that they have never read Marx and think that Lenin is "too hard-line communist and true communism can never work", which mind fucks me because they say they support it yet don't believe it is possible.

That still denotes a positive movement though, as compared to how communism was treated only mere decades ago in the US. I am by no measure saying that a majority of American youths who sympathize with the left have a thorough understanding of Marxist theory or what have you, but rather that they are slowly rising from their forcefully adopted state of false consciousness. It is a difficult process to undergo and one must not presume results to be immediate in regards to this matter.

[Sixiang]

Purely out of interest, how difficult is it to be a Communist in the USA? I understand that there are Communists there, but with the history of anti-Communism that that country has lived through, how can the Communists ever make a break through?
It can be difficult. I keep it very secret. I read my communist literature and post on this site and read up on my other Marxist sites in utter secrecy. That's because my father is a hardline Republican and my mother is a devoted Roman Catholic. When discussing politics, I just talk about the issues and topics at hand, not any sort of overall ideological discourse where I say "well I'm a communist so I think this." It can be easy to be against US-imperialism and the other things that leftists across the board dislike, but it can get hazy when you start talking about unions and labor politics.


I have to disagree, most "Leftists" I have met are merely Che Guevara shirt hipsters who claim they read his diary, and say that they have never read Marx and think that Lenin is "too hard-line communist and true communism can never work", which mind fucks me because they say they support it yet don't believe it is possible.
I have met a few of those myself. Most of the people I know around my age where I live describe themselves as "moderate" because they at least seem disillusioned with the two major party.

[RedMarxist]

I don't keep it secret. And look where that landed me:

uncaring conservative, christian parents who don't seem to understand what it is so they talk about how they "fear for me because I'm a radical"

school chums who are scratching their heads, asking me why in the world I'd believe in such a horrible thing

teachers who talk of the evils of communism when discussing animal farm.

[Susurrus]

I am fortunate enough to be in an environment that is fine with my beliefs, and frequently debate with the right-libertarians at my school. However, when it's time to visit the relatives up in rural VA(including a Cuban-exile grandmother and another grandmother who fled the Soviet Union under Stalin), on goes the liberal disguise.

[Mr. Cervantes]

Kudos Dave!

I'll add that we old timers went through the era when anti-communism was the national religion of the USA, and the term "communism" was very elastic in its meaning when deployed by the right to attack its opponents.

True story, supposedly my great uncle in the 1970's was murdered for being a devoted communist activist.

However it could never be proven in how he died since it involved a airplane crash.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'll add that we old timers went through the era when anti-communism was the national religion of the USA, and the term "communism" was very elastic in its meaning when deployed by the right to attack its opponents.

Aww, you're not an old timer, but here's some O.G. wisdom from "In Dubious Battle" along the same lines:


Anybody that wants a living wage is a radical.


I figure a communist is anyone who asks for 20 cents when they're being payed ten.

Now those characters and the real radical union organizers they were a composite of faced anti-red hired goons and denunciations that make Glenn Beck look like a(n) insane purring kitten in comparison. But they were also able to have more of a connection to massive working class struggle than most of us have had the opportunity.

But I think it also backs up what Red Dave was saying, it's easier to be a communist who writes articles or works at a university doing research than it is to be a non-radical who is actually engaging in class struggle as far as the opposition you'll get. It's just one of the reasons people can be radicalized through struggle.

Anyway, so there's never going to be an easy time to be a revolutionary, but right now is probably the easiest time in my political experience to make radical arguments to regular folks. So many things that 5 - 10 years ago were pro-capitalist "common sense" ideas among workers have been blown out of the water and radical arguments that used to take a lot of explaining and arguing and reaching back to obscure (or obscured) historical examples can now be easily explained and demonstrated to people through their own lived experiences.

As far as being a communist in the US specifically, it does make a difference where you are and the local history of the place you are at - like it's easy to make some arguments to people here in Oakland just because of a legacy of relatively strong unionism and the legacy of the Black Panthers and Free Speech movement. But it also matters who you are talking to and while it's difficult to be a communist when trying to deal with "official" local politics because liberals will dismiss you as irrelevant or quaint and the right will just not have anything to do with you, consequently you can build a real solid campaign and bring in a lot of working class activists and have all this success but the newspapers will still rather report on 5 hippies building bikes out of twigs and tofu as an "effective protest" than the 500 people you were able to mobilize to shut down the port or something. But among many regular workers here the "anti-communist/radical" sentiment is really just a mile wide and an inch thick. The 1980s, as I gather (I wasn't a radical or in high school even at that point), was much more difficult - but the New Right that helped the ruling class scare dissent and push it's one-sided war on workers is now on the decline and people coming to political consciousness now are more likely to be friendlier to our politics than to the right. Just compare the general youthfulness of the Wisconsin protests to the graying Tea Partiers... nothing against old timers:lol:.

[Coach Trotsky]

Kudos Dave!

I'll add that we old timers went through the era when anti-communism was the national religion of the USA, and the term "communism" was very elastic in its meaning when deployed by the right to attack its opponents.

I'd say that religious anti-communism has definitely made a comeback (especially with the Tea Party, Glenn Beck's 9/12 movement, etc). Likewise, the elastic meaning of "communism" and "socialism" in America, as in "Obama is a communist", which you will hear repeated often in certain parts of the USA (such as in the Upper Midwest conservative hellhole where I live).

[Mr. Cervantes]

I'd say that religious anti-communism has definitely made a comeback (especially with the Tea Party, Glenn Beck's 9/12 movement, etc). Likewise, the elastic meaning of "communism" and "socialism" in America, as in "Obama is a communist", which you will hear repeated often in certain parts of the USA (such as in the Upper Midwest conservative hellhole where I live).

Religious anti- communism is funny.

Wasn't Jesus a big socialist anyways? The guy had alot to say about wealthy imperialist oppressors suffering the poor and all that.

[Coach Trotsky]

Religious anti- communism is funny.

Wasn't Jesus a big socialist anyways? The guy had alot to say about wealthy imperialist oppressors suffering the poor and all that.

Jesus has to be one of the most exploited people to have ever lived. Been dead for 2000+ years, and yet the exploiting classes STILL use him.
Talk about eliminating retirement...they just can't let this guy rest in peace.

[Delenda Carthago]

Most of the american anti-communism is actually a positive thing. If you understand that communism to people mean a horible antidemocratic regime of a cruel dictator where if someone has a different opinion gets killed, of course its a proggresive thing to be against it. The point is to make clear what socialism of the 20th century was, with the rights and wrongs of it.

[Coach Trotsky]

Most of the american anti-communism is actually a positive thing. If you understand that communism to people mean a horible antidemocratic regime of a cruel dictator where if someone has a different opinion gets killed, of course its a proggresive thing to be against it. The point is to make clear what socialism of the 20th century was, with the rights and wrongs of it.

That's not what the fanatical anti-communist types like the Tea Party folks are about. They'd jump for fascism in a second, as long as their future fuehrer said "God" or "Jesus" a lot while waving the American flag.
When the workers make our revolution in America, we will need a lot of hungry lions to deal with our Christian Taliban fascist problem. It's kill or be killed with those types. Coexistence is impossible. If a "church" is used to as a bastion of counterrevolution and for disseminating reactionary poison to the masses, it deserves no sanctuary in a workers' state.

[Delenda Carthago]

That's not what the fanatical anti-communist types like the Tea Party folks are about. They'd jump for fascism in a second, as long as their future fuehrer said "God" or "Jesus" a lot while waving the American flag.
When the workers make our revolution in America, we will need a lot of hungry lions to deal with our Christian Taliban fascist problem. It's kill or be killed with those types. Coexistence is impossible. If a "church" is used to as a bastion of counterrevolution and for disseminating reactionary poison to the masses, it deserves no sanctuary in a workers' state.
I wasnt talkin about them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd say that religious anti-communism has definitely made a comeback (especially with the Tea Party, Glenn Beck's 9/12 movement, etc). Likewise, the elastic meaning of "communism" and "socialism" in America, as in "Obama is a communist", which you will hear repeated often in certain parts of the USA (such as in the Upper Midwest conservative hellhole where I live).But is it a comeback or hold-over?

In the 1980s it really was a retreat of the radical left and reformists along with a "new right" that was able to pull popular opinion to the right and win more popular support. Although things can change, at this point I think the trajectory of a lot of people is still away from the right - the downside is without an organized alternative it's unclear where "away" from the right and the politics of the last generation leads. Polls done after the recession have shown (both before and after the "rise" of the tea-partyists) that among young people 1/3 support "socialism" (more like social-democracy really) and 1/3 support capitalism. I think that along with things like the Wisconsin protests shows the potential for us to make more inroads and for the possibility of new working class or social movements to develop.

From what I've seen and read most of the tea-party organizers are "astro-turf" and longtime right-wing organizers and much of the supporters of this are the right of the Republican party. In a NY Times poll, tea-party supporters were more likely to still support Bush than Republican voters in general. They adore Regan and are, frankly, old boomers and post-boomers who developed their political ideas during a rightward turn and one-sided class war in the US after the 1970s.

Meanwhile the youngish people developing their ideas about the world and how to relate to it and act are people who have never know "entitlements" and "government handouts" (unless you are speaking of corporate ones) and are faced with lowered job prospects, higher education costs, and the reality of downward mobility. So when rich old men who support fucking over "entitled students" or lazy low-wage workers and then yell about how "socialism" is coming and wealth is going to be redistributed... well it probably helps us out in a way.:lol:

[x359594]

Most of the american anti-communism is actually a positive thing. If you understand that communism to people mean a horible antidemocratic regime of a cruel dictator where if someone has a different opinion gets killed...

The understanding of communism you describe above is the understanding of a thin layer of the American intelligentsia.

The US mass media portrayed communism as a vast conspiracy behind every instance of social unrest from race riots to strikes to peace demonstrations. Communist agitators in the pay of the Kremlin were behind it all. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was either an agent or dupe of communism. The same for Dr. Benjamin Spock and any other liberal who broke ranks with the dominant ideological consensus and acted on it.

There were of course a lot of people who didn't buy that scenario and mocked it, but they were marginal, to be found among artists, musicians, poets, beatniks, hippies, radicals and a few successful hipsters like Stanley Kubrick who satirized the whole right wing communist conspiracy mind set in his movie Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The crazed General Ripper's belief that flouridated water was part of the communist conspiracy came straight from the John Birch Society.

[Coach Trotsky]

But is it a comeback or hold-over?

In the 1980s it really was a retreat of the radical left and reformists along with a "new right" that was able to pull popular opinion to the right and win more popular support. Although things can change, at this point I think the trajectory of a lot of people is still away from the right - the downside is without an organized alternative it's unclear where "away" from the right and the politics of the last generation leads. Polls done after the recession have shown (both before and after the "rise" of the tea-partyists) that among young people 1/3 support "socialism" (more like social-democracy really) and 1/3 support capitalism. I think that along with things like the Wisconsin protests shows the potential for us to make more inroads and for the possibility of new working class or social movements to develop.

From what I've seen and read most of the tea-party organizers are "astro-turf" and longtime right-wing organizers and much of the supporters of this are the right of the Republican party. In a NY Times poll, tea-party supporters were more likely to still support Bush than Republican voters in general. They adore Regan and are, frankly, old boomers and post-boomers who developed their political ideas during a rightward turn and one-sided class war in the US after the 1970s.

Meanwhile the youngish people developing their ideas about the world and how to relate to it and act are people who have never know "entitlements" and "government handouts" (unless you are speaking of corporate ones) and are faced with lowered job prospects, higher education costs, and the reality of downward mobility. So when rich old men who support fucking over "entitled students" or lazy low-wage workers and then yell about how "socialism" is coming and wealth is going to be redistributed... well it probably helps us out in a way.:lol:

I'd like to think it will help us, but it will only help us if we are AMONG the workers, youth and oppressed (particularly those who aren't yet or aren't currently politically identifying with any faction in the bourgeois political machine) who are trying to make a fight somehow.
I'm sick of the Democrats and Republicans playing a rigged political ping-pong game at our expense. I'm sick of all the so called "progressives" and Leftists that let 'em get away with it. I want to get the hell out of the conservative Tea Party hellhole that is the Upper MidWest, but it's a real pain in the ass trying to figure out where to go so I can get active again, because I don't know where other serious revolutionary socialists are concentrated and active intervening in or initiating struggles of the workers, youth and oppressed, and actually trying advancing them across a transitional bridge to revolution.
God damn, I ain't so damn picky. I just want revolutionary socialists to act like revolutionary socialists, not like Democrats, not like depressed defeated losers who can do nothing but try to hang out in some lame irrelevant "left unity" retirement home until we die one by one. From here, it seems that a dynamic interventionist revolutionary socialist movement in America will need to be rebuilt again from scratch...that basically almost the whole 'Left' dropped the ball and either became irrelevant sect cultists or Clintonite/Obamaites (or both), so that their revolutionary history-changing potential is almost zero.

Is there any serious revolutionary socialists who want to leave the bourgeois political marketplace and the irrelevant Left sects behind, and go to the workers, youth and oppressed ourselves independently instead (fuck waiting for permission from liberal-Left leaders and doing their ground-level errands for them, fuck pimping liberal-style divide-and-conquers hustles and their bullshit co-opting struggle-suppressing panaceas, fuck Popular Front politics entirely)? Anybody who wants to get away from a focus on incestuously trying to pick away members of other little Left sects or mainly chasing after "middle class" trendy people who perceive themselves to have decent prospects of upward mobility within this system but who temporarily are posing as "enlightened" radical chic while in college or in order to buffer up a resume for their future careers as sellout liberal bureaucrats?
If so, please let me know who and where these revolutionary socialists are, and how to contact them.

[RedMarxist]

I'm in high school. I had a teacher who upon teaching Animal Farm, proceeded to rant about the evils and horrors of COMMUNISM. He's like: "well, some people SADLY still believe in communism in America, that is sick. no one should tolerate that"

It made me so pissed off. What I should have said was that George Orwell was a Trot, and and that his book is not against communism, but Stalinism. but sadly I kept my mouth shut, as I was afraid of coming off as not mainstream.

[Susurrus]

George Orwell was a Trot[/B]

No he wasn't, he just opposed the Stalinism and Authoritarian Socialism. He was influenced by Trotskyist critiques of Stalin, but he was never one himself.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm in high school. I had a teacher who upon teaching Animal Farm, proceeded to rant about the evils and horrors of COMMUNISM. He's like: "well, some people SADLY still believe in communism in America, that is sick. no one should tolerate that"

It made me so pissed off. What I should have said was that George Orwell was a Trot, and and that his book is not against communism, but Stalinism. but sadly I kept my mouth shut, as I was afraid of coming off as not mainstream.

Well you can pretty easily argue that one of the main criticisms of Communism in that book is that Napoleon ACTS like the farmers i.e. the capitalists! The pig bureaucracy lives in the home and pretend to be the farmers. Not to mention that the name Napoleon is obviously and transparently loaded as a reference to the French Revolution which again, suggests that the critique is not of communist revolution but the BETRAYAL of that revolution and those ideals.

The only way an intellectually honest person can read that book as against the ideas and ideals of communism is if they somehow argue that the book is saying that any attempted revolution would turn out with a betrayal. But even that's a stretch since a tiny amount of knowledge of the history of the revolution should inform people that Orwell blames not Revolution, but the isolation of the farm, surrounded by hostile farmers, and the accommodation to this of the pigs!

I haven't read this book in over a decade and a half and I could probably out-argue your teacher in a debate. Anti-communism breeds lazy thinking.

[RedMarxist]

thanks for that pointless factoid. :rolleyes:

My point is our teacher thought George Orwell was against Communism as a whole, not just Stalinism. So he used the book as a way to attack communism.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Purely out of interest, how difficult is it to be a Communist in the USA? I understand that there are Communists there, but with the history of anti-Communism that that country has lived through, how can the Communists ever make a break through?

Well, I'm relatively new and I keep things anonymous but we'll see. I think (especially today) that a lot of people are sympathetic to the basic ideas of Marxism however most will probably disagree and then argue against said ideas if you outright say it's Communism, after all, it has been tried all over the bloody world and obviously, it failed, right? Right, but over all, from my own observations, people are very aware of the downfalls of capitalism, they know there needs to be change, a lot of people have become more political however in relation to revolution, this remains to be seen and reformist bullshit is rampant.

[Delenda Carthago]

Black Panthers were communist organisation and they were pretty massive...

[Coach Trotsky]

Black Panthers were communist organisation and they were pretty massive...

But most people thought of them as a Black nationalist organization, that was particularly militant.

If you're look European or Asian or Hispanic ethnic in America, and you are talking about socialism, you can expect a lot of Red-baiting hate towards you. "Go back to Russia, China, Cuba", etc.

If you look Black in America, and you are talking about socialism, you can expect a lot of race-baiting hate towards you. much more then you'll get Red-baited.

[Sixiang]

It is great that it is changing and that more and more people are open to it, especially the youth.

Is there anything that people outside the USA can do to help promote Communism there?
Solidarity.

[Coach Trotsky]

Solidarity.

Agreed on ACTIVE solidarity. The only sort of competition within the proletariat that I support is the race to see who can first mobilize the forces and push the hardest to successfully deliver the revolutionary overthrow of the ruling class and its state and conquest of power by the proletariat and the oppressed.
The prize includes little bit of bragging rights for being first, but the main gain is encouraging and setting in motion an international proletarian revolution, and being able to use our newly conquered power and resources to assist seeing that revolution through to global victory and thus to a humanity which has together completely broke free of the chains of exploitative society.

So props to those who are first, but much more props to those who push still to see this revolution through to the point where the workers and oppressed of every land on this planet have successfully made their own self-emancipation in actuality. We're not done running this race until the very last proletarians and oppressed have crossed the finish line of successful proletarian revolution.

[Zugunruhe]

I think it's not hard to be a communist. It's not hard to be openly a radical leftist--it's just the words "communism" or "anarchism" that bother people. For example, I'm ridiculously open about my ideology in my high school (I've written extensively in our paper about how my ideology and take on things) and I haven't encountered a lot of trouble as long as I don't put the brand of "communist" or "anarchist" on myself.

[BE_]

I would say its pretty hard to be a openly Communist in the USA. Everyone has many years of anti-leftist brainwashing done to them. Old people are usually the most anti Communist.
But it also depends on where you live. Where i live is a really conservative christian area.

[freya4]

Most people is the US simply don't know what communism really is. They're just afraid of the word. That being said, it takes a lot of courage I think to openly identify as a communist in this country. There's huge fear and paranoia associated around it. Some even place communism and Nazism on the same level. The school system is also very biased against communism. My AP history teacher, when he was talking about socialism and the labor movement in the 19th century, completely went off on a tangent on how capitalism was great and how anarchists/communists just want to destroy everything and steal everyone's property. Our English teacher, when we were going over the background of Animal Farm, started preaching to us about how communism was a good idea but it would never work due to human nature. Most ridiculous of all was our math teacher ranting on how communism destroyed people's lives and freedom. I don't understand why they insist on injecting their opinion into everything they teach. I thought education was supposed to be impartial and objective. This country is being brainwashed right from the start. :mad:

[Agent Equality]

I agree with Freya4. I'm in highschool as well and most people who I talk to haven't the slightest idea of what communism or socialism is. They do exactly as Freya4 said and rant about "it taeks ure freedumz and muhneez".

My english teacher was ranting about how thankful he is that we have "Democracy and Capitalism" in our country, which quite frankly, made me giggle on the inside. My AP european history teacher was a bit more objective and had us write essays on the differences and similiarities between stalinism and leninism and marxism, etc. etc. which I aced on all of them. But he still seemed inclined to say that communism didn't work and that it was overall bad.

I am not openly communist. If I proclaimed to my parents (mother is an angry christian republican[if I'm correct] and my father is a liberal capitalist-junky who wants to make money) that I was a communist or a socialist, then they'd probably try to disown me or something.

I hate this country and everything to do with its political/economic/social system. But to openly hate it would be social suicide for me. I live in Southern California btw, which is supposedly commiefornia(probably just rightist propaganda), although I have yet to meet any others with my same ideological beliefs

[RedMarxist]

if I became a teacher I'd lose my job for preaching the exact opposite when discussing animal farm.

[Rooster]

Some of the questions you have to answer to get a visa to visit the states are kinda worrying :lol:

[freya4]

Some of the questions you have to answer to get a visa to visit the states are kinda worrying :lol:
I know, it's ridiculous. When applying for a green card in the US, they ask you if you've been involved in genocide, prostitution, espionage, terrorism, polygamy, racism, drugs, and of course, communism. :laugh:
My parents actually had to lie about that on their application, since they used to be affiliated with some communist groups. Apparently, the government is strict on not letting communists and communist party members into the country.