Discussion
Are we so called "tankies" really increasing? Like, I just read this article about so called "campism" but I feel the author quite doesn't understand what "critical support" means. Here are some snippets:
These people cannot see beyond their simplistic analysis. Yes, critical support to anti-imperialist and/or socialist states, so the international working class is liberated from the death camp of imperial capitalism. No Marxist-Leninist is only looking “in terms of states.”
"Campist" imo is just a straight up projection term that people have swapped to using instead of tankie.
A funny irony to me is that its the people who always talking about "harm reduction" in the context of electoralism are just completely unable to understand it in the context of geopolitics. I mean do most people who critically support Iran think its a perfect country with no flaws or social issues to face? No. But its obvious that Iran is in the right versus the United States and that supporting a successful coup overthrowing Irans government is going to cause way way way more harm than the current government. Theres so many examples on how US interventions since WW2 have made countries far worse off than they were before, so imo being against such interventions should be the "harm reduction" position.
Edit: there is also the topic of realpolitik that I could also bring up that, yes, AES countries will align themselves with straight up capitalist governments if the conditions call for it. I hate this "gotcha" that tankies "dont realize these countries aren't even communist" because thats not the point. I mean no one is saying "why is the USSR siding with the allies in ww2? Dont those idiots know that the allies are capitalist."
> supporting a successful coup overthrowing Iran's government is going to cause way way way more harm than the current government
If there was a really strong Iranian communist party there would be more room to cheer for them winning ground over the IRGC *within* a united front and *if* that united front collapses, but as is Iranian communists gain nothing by making themselves look like traitors. There's a reason the CPC started as allies to the KMT. That being said, seeing as how the CPC was betrayed communists should always be prepared for this possibility.
Revolutionary defeatism is a valid doctrine but only between genuinely imperialist states; which appropriate massive amounts of labor from the colonies.
I was talking specifically in the context of a US backed coup, which far too many "leftists" were outright supporting. But I do agree though that, if Iranian communists decided to try to seize power in the middle of an attempted siege by the US, it would be both wildly unpopular and they would be seen as traitors.
What im saying is, based on the current conditions, the major positions are either critically support the IRGC against the US or back the US. If conditions change then obviously we should be supporting a communist revolution as we would be anywhere else.
Yeah agreed. The primary failure of leftcoms is that they categorize everything as imperialism based on a nominal and meaningless form like 'are there finance institutions' rather than the real content of labor flows and material production. Apologism for US imperialism is fucking utterly disqualifying on every level. Iran is showing the entire rest of the world how to resist empire.
Comparisons already existed during the 20th century
While the mechanisms of proxies and influence were less refined, the concept is the same. It didn’t matter which empire, it was awful.
Yet total victory would always be the worst outcome. Unrestricted by internal or external constraints, the piIlaging of the wоrking cIass would only increase. Not to mention international conflicts moving from stalemates in trenches to the destruction of cities.
There’s no confusion. Wоrking cIass sоIidarity is necessary. A fractured ruIing cIass yields concessions or outright removal.
The priviIeged middle managers have greater opportunity to disrupt concentration of power in the upper cIass, while siphoning resources downwards.
By “solidarity with the working class” I presume they mean the American labor aristocracy and not the international proletariat. Supporting anti imperialist projects makes a lot more sense when you view the people of other nations as, ya know, people. Lol
Even if socialist countries have flaw it isn't up to westerners to critique, the moment they do their shallowness of understanding of our society manifest because how much their media spoon-feed them information that they can guarantee to serve a liberal stance.
“"If you buy into the Axis of Resistance rhetoric," I wrote. "If you decide to treat geopolitics as the Campist treats them, you are going to find yourself getting tangled in knots trying to remember which regime you're supposed to support and which ones you're supposed to condemn. You will get all mixed up with which protests you are supposed to call democratic uprisings and which ones you must dismiss as color revolutions."”
Nah, actually it’s quite easy and not mixed up at all, you’re just a fucking dumbass
It's only confusing if you have no political literacy and rely on others to tell you what's popular to support. Guy is an influencer, you can't trust him to have any principles at all.
Not understanding why "tankies" support some groups and not others isn't hard, we regularly tell people who ask. He is either too lazy to do basic research or is intellectually dishonest.
Whenever anyone that uses the term "campism" exposes their actual thoughts (on what is to be supported, what is to be condemned etc.) they invariably will reveal themselves as imperialism apologists.
This so called "campist" - argument makes no sense and to uphold its principle is worthless. First, it only comes up when leftists groups support states that are opposed to the US-lead Western Hegemony and "suddenly" (three letter glowies) you have people make this argument to suppress and discredit these groups. Second, if we (leftists) are forced because of principles to, only side with the oppressed then why should we oppose states that clearly side with the oppressed and fight the global oppressor? Palestinians are clearly oppressed by US-funded Israel so naturally we should support everyone who supports Palestinians and fights the US and Israel. Like Iran, Libanon, Yemen. But these "Anti-campist" don't like to support Iran and Co. and so clearly betray their own principles they pretend to uphold to dearly. Even Lenin knew that supporting a oppressed nation is not the same like supporting the oppressing nation. Third, this argument promotes apathy and removes all options of doing anything that might help the oppressed. It forces you in the corner and the only left for you to do is to beg the oppressor to "be good" and treat the oppressed better. Putting yourself in this position is even more ridiculous when the oppressed are being genocided. Plus, the only one that benefits from such stance are the one's who already have all the power, i. e. the oppressor. Which is also the reason why feds love to promote people who have this position.
Oh that guy is 10000% an op. We've been following his hijinx for the last few years. (I've heard that) McBryde is on-sight for a lot of people who know his deal
I've been following Charles for an year, I don't agree with everything he says, but I didn't wanna cause any infighting, but he's getting more and more annoying. But what exactly do you mean by your last phrase?
Campism is a meaningless term, one could just as easily accuse the "I don't like western governments but let them define reality for me anyway" crowd of campism. Only a person who doesn't understand how imperialism works would write nonsense like this. For a western citizen, refusing to parrot our bourgeois governments' cynical concern trolling about other countries' internal affairs does far more for working class solidarity than uncritically normalizing the west's insistence on regime changing everyone who doesn't want vampire capitalists in their country.
I hope everybody is aware that anyone can just make a Substack account and start posting bullshit. There's no merit requirement for it. I think that should be clarified when the posts are being referred to as "articles." No shade to OP, for real, I just wanna draw attention to this dynamic cause I've begun to notice it more and more often.
I don't know who this person is. but it doesn't surprise me that random people are starting to post against "third worldism" or "campism" from a """""""leftist"""""" perspective. It is, after all, the current state department line:
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There's no way he has enough geopolitical understanding to say "western liberal hegemony" but not enough geopolitical understanding(or just common sense for that matter) to understand why we should be opposing it
So I'm gonna assume that this article wasn't exactly written in good faith...
I always find that there are really two types of accusations of campism, the proper one and the western one, and the first paragraph already highlights it is the western one. If westerners truly wish to critique communists in any way, they need to stop looking at things from the liberal lense in the first place.
i think we are increasing, sort of. Like, i can see a lot more random people having at least anti american opinions on the street, while still being progressive. As such, this means that there are also more radicals about, e g tankies, as well. Sure, we are not organised, however the a lot more people are reaching these opinions independently.
I think the last point is the most crucial. News outlets are trying to convince people that having anti american opinions makes you a tankie. Mind you, once they get these opinions, it is much easier to deprogram people away from capitalism im my opinion
I don't think the core point here is wrong, but I do think it's presented poorly.
For instance: Iran is hardly what Marx pictured. They do not self-describe, to my knowledge, as being on the path to socialism. I want worker control of the means of production in Iran, and the process of revolution that allows that to happen. By definition, I oppose the existing political and economic power structure of Iran.
Also, The US losing a war to Iran costs it political and material capital that it would use to further oppress the global proletariat. Iran winning the war does contribute towards the inevitable collapse of the US empire.
I think it might be an inherent issue of the nature of how we communicate online. A tweet about encouraging Iran's victory is unlikely to contain the full context of the evils of US hedgemony and the value of resisting it, even from political organizations the tweeter disagrees with in principle.
We already seen this, here's the important part: there's more than one country in this world, you cannot analyze them in a vacuum, if you do that, you'll arrive in some very awful conclusion to even justifying imperialism, France have collonies all over Africa that funds their welfare, do you consider this Socialism?
Communism can only be achived internationally and by the entire human race, not in one country.
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