Category: Movement Critique

  • A Response to: “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded” (Tang, 2007)

    Eric Tang is to be commended and thanked for his historic sketch of the “movement,” as well as for engaging in a long-needed critical examination of the role of NGOs. I am sure Eric would be the first to agree that his reflections were not meant to be exhaustive. And so I would like to…

  • On NGOs

    What do we find today among those who are interested in justice, who are concerned, disturbed, saddened by the suffering we find in our midst? What do we find among those committed to doing something about the problems of our society? There are those who make their vocation – paid in addressing this or that…

  • Combating Defeatism

    While the initial response to the present crisis is working class retreat, of worldwide governmental capitulation to imperialism and especially US imperialism and the creation of a new Holy Alliance, it cannot be too long before militant resistance surfaces to challenge the global system in dozens of countries virtually simultaneously, a resistance which a hemorrhaging…

  • On “Black Capitalism”

    I would like to take a moment to discuss the question of economics and the Black community. It has become a cliche now among militant nationalists, whether frankly capitalist-oriented or anti-imperialist, that Blacks must create their own economy, support Black enterprise, “keep the money in the family.” You and I have already run down what…

  • Remarks on Socialist Collapse (1999)

    Originally delivered to a conference of socialist scholars in 1999. Amidst the collapse of the socialist states and Communist Parties, and the emergence of the United States as arbiter of the destiny of the world, bourgeois pundits have proclaimed the “death of ideology” and even the “death of history.” The victory of the so-called Free…

  • The One-State Solution: Edward Said’s Politics of Despair

    Edward Said, a brilliant representative of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, is a man who has rendered enormous service in exposing the brutality and injustice of the Israeli occupation and, recently, the hollowness of the so-called peace process, which he has rightly characterized as a process of Palestinian surrender… The present situation of…

  • Race, Class, and Revolution – A Few Amplifying Remarks

    Originally written June 3, 1996. CAPITALISM Capitalism breeds and is inseparable from racism, xenophobia, sexism, and a limitless assortment of inequities. Inequitable practices and the bigotry that rationalizes them are profitable! Capitalism is organized on the principle of dog-eat-dog, survival of the most ruthless. It is overwhelmingly competitive in nature. The capitalist sharks are sharp…

  • Left Fragmentation

    The Left is incredibly fragmented. Obviously, as long as it is in pieces it will remain weak. And yet that is not the real problem at this juncture. The real problem is that the Left is divided into essentially two pieces, if we consider only their political complexion and not other factors such as national…

  • The Collapse of the USSR, Tasks of Communists – Letter Excerpt, April 1993

    In my opinion, Marxist-Leninists are faced with three major responsibilities in this period: First, to keep the banner of socialism and Marxism-Leninism flying; second, to critique collectively the historical experience of socialist construction from a socialist and Marxist-Leninist standpoint, which means dialectically, not discarding that experience but embodying it in a higher theoretical synthesis, and…

  • When Facing Disillusion

    Always remember, while capitalism produces collections of disillusioned, rudderless, dissatisfied representatives of the middle class who drift helplessly with the prevailing currents, so too does it produce staunch revolutionary leaders who, along with the masses, will proceed to the business of making history.