Q: The recent statements of the RCA are clear enough: your party condemns the actions of US imperialism in Latin America and the genocide in Gaza. But what are you doing about it? Anyone can declare their opposition to this or that policy, but what will it take to actually end these atrocities?
A: Trump’s rampage in Latin America, belligerence toward Iran, support for Israel’s savagery, and threats to seize Greenland are re-awakening an anti-imperialist mood in the United States. Though he campaigned on ending “forever wars,” he’s doing the opposite. As a result of these policies, and those of “Genocide Joe” before him, public opinion has been transformed in recent years. Our position condemning US imperialism is no longer considered a “radical fringe” outlook, but is a view shared by millions.
A Harvard study found that there have been over 2,100 pro-Palestine protests across 500 cities involving hundreds of thousands since the start of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza in 2023. The director of the study called it “one of the largest mobilizations we’ve seen in the United States on any political issue since the [George Floyd] social justice uprising of 2020, which itself was probably the largest protest wave in American history.”
The scale of this movement leaves no doubt that a significant layer of the US working class, spearheaded by the youth, shares a determination to fight imperialism, as well as sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and deep reserves of hatred for the American ruling class. The RCA took to the streets alongside those seeking to strike a blow against Zionism. We spoke out in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and campuses, linking this struggle to the fight against capitalism.
Marxism explains that consciousness is shaped by great events, and that the spontaneity of the masses—like a powerful force of nature—plays an important role in any serious struggle. But spontaneity is a double-edged sword. While the movement produced some truly inspiring results in the first period of this struggle, the limitations of spontaneity became just as apparent at a later stage. Despite the mass mobilizations of hundreds of thousands, the horrible genocide continued unabated.
Despite the mass mobilizations, the horrible genocide continued unabated. There was a temporary escalation around the university encampments in the spring of 2024, but the movement has steadily dwindled ever since, and Trump has pushed forward with his agenda.
As a result, a new mood has emerged on the ground. Many are asking, “what’s the point in even protesting? It doesn’t accomplish anything.” This is an understandable reaction to the directionless failures of the recent past. Others ask “how can we succeed this time?” This searching mood reflects a maturation among the revolutionary vanguard in the United States.
A new mood has emerged on the ground. Many are asking, “how can we succeed this time?” This searching mood reflects a maturation among the revolutionary vanguard in the US. Image: RCA
“Riding a wave” vs. channeling a current
Though it enjoyed widespread sympathy, the Palestine solidarity movement lacked ideological coherence, a recognized and accountable leadership, mass democratic input, or a strategy for expanding and extending the struggle to the American working class—the only force that can bring US imperialism to a grinding halt.
The above-mentioned Harvard study found that a total of more than 1,000 organizations participated to some degree or other in the protest movement. Who decided the course of action, slogans, methods, and tactics? The spontaneous nature of the movement elevated accidental and self-selected elements to the fore as a de facto leadership.
In most cases, the unelected guiding layer of the movement included middle-class activist circles, nonprofits, reformist academics, or ultraleft sectarians, each with their own eclectic political views, methods, and aims.
While these elements appear to “lead” the movement, in effect, they are more like an amateur surfer haphazardly catching a wave: They’re raised temporarily by the momentum of the powerful upswell, but they ride the wave without directing it or affecting its path. They lack the means of channeling the movement’s power toward a clear outcome, because their political outlook lacks the tools—a revolutionary program rooted in a scientific view of the class struggle and the state—to achieve this result.
In the absence of a coherent strategy that could focus the mass energy toward victories, giving it a sense of progress and direction, the activist groups at the head got stuck in a perpetual loop. One more protest, one more frenetic appeal to “shut it down!”—without shutting anything down—gradually exhausted the movement and led to demoralization.
As a byproduct of this tactical impasse, we also saw the rise of “direct action”—small groups of activists trying to substitute themselves and their own personal courage for tasks achievable only by the mass action of the working class.
Taking the correct idea that “we need to hit them in the wallet” or “halt business as usual,” proponents of “direct action” draw the incorrect conclusion that all we can do is block a bridge or a highway with a small protest. Unfortunately, such methods tend to exclude, by their very nature, the participation of the broader working class, and distract the most determined fighters from the main task, which is politically convincing the working class to join the struggle.
Instead of direct action, revolutionary communists counterpose mass action. / Image: RCA
Back to Bolshevism, forward to the masses!
America’s ruling class is not at all threatened by this kind of “direct action.” Instead of direct action, revolutionary communists counterpose mass action. The ruling class is much less comfortable dealing with anti-imperialist political strikes—such as the two-million-strong general strike we saw in Italy a few months ago. A targeted workers’ shutdown of key military logistics systems, as part of a nationwide labor action in the US would be an earth-shattering turn of events. The world’s most reactionary source of imperialist terror would be paralyzed in its tracks.
If the American working class chose to wield this power today, nothing could stop it. The barriers standing in its way are not physical, but political and psychological. Our class holds this potential power but doesn’t yet recognize it.
This is why long-term perspectives and methods of Bolshevik party-building are indispensable.
The downward trajectory of US imperialism will only accelerate in the coming years, and though there will be ebbs and flows, anti-imperialist sentiment in this country will intensify.
What is necessary to organize and properly coordinate mass action are methods focused on ideas and political motivation: the work of organized, systematic agitation and propaganda among the working class. Our movement needs a trained network of professional agitators and propagandists that work together to bring ideas and structure to the working masses, with the aim of converting them from mere sympathizers or bystanders into active organizers and fighters against imperialism.
In other words, what the movement needs is a revolutionary party composed of Marxist cadres capable of establishing revolutionary cells in every industry, workplace, campus, and neighborhood. Only working-class organization at this scale can coordinate to shut down the imperialist war machine once and for all. The mass action of the working class is our most potent weapon, and building a revolutionary party that can harness it is our most urgent priority.