[AFAIK]

I know commies are internationalists who see the world along class lines but most people identify themselves with their country, city, village, etc.

Why aren't modern day socialists and communists more critical of immigration? How do you plan to build a movement amongst the working class if you don't oppose the arrival of immigrants who undercut their wages and working conditions and frequently hold views to the right of locals on social issues?


Most people don't read Marx. Most haven't developed class consciousness or see themselves as internationalists. They see immigrants and their own groups unemployment as directly connected.

Why would people trust you and work with you when you condone policies that undermine their material conditions?

[Zionist Nationalist]

Immigration from non Muslim/African countries is fine.

but when you bring caveman into your country you get troubles.

[Decky]

We on the left are anti immigration. Why would we want working class areas flooded with the most right wing people on earth? The thing about the left being pro immigration is a right wing myth. It is the right that is pro immigration, they are the servants of capitalists and the capitalists need to import ever more workers to push our wages down and weaken out unions.

Immigration is also a tool for rich nations to poach the best educated people from undeveloped nations (therefore making profits for capitalists and ensuting the underdeveloped nations will never have the educated workforce they need to develop).

[Atlantis]

Why aren't modern day socialists and communists more critical of immigration?

Because they have got their nickers in a twist.

They know that Western workers belong to the privileged classes of the World who live at the expense of the poor in the 3rd world.

They try to hold on to internationalism while their electorate has already moved towards a brand of Nationalist Socialism (ie. Nazis) that will swell the ranks of the right-wing racists.

Socialism is about to die of its own contradiction, just like capitalism.

The political center and the social market economy will prevail.

[Wellsy]

Because I was curious about opinion on immigration also, I found this thread and post in particular which may be of interest.
https://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=13700700#p13700700
Part of the idea of stopping immigration is that it makes more sense to improve things where people live than it does to have people uproot their entire lives to pursue opportunities of improved economic stability and quality of living.

But I do wonder whether this does conflict with internationalist position which I imagine is what's implied by this questioning.
I've made some short glances at quotes from Lenin, though someone else might have a better knowledge to interpret their significance, but sounds clear enough that opposing immigration was thought by Lenin as not internationalist.
The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart - Lenin

A few words about the resolution on emigration and immigration. Here, too, in the Commission there was an attempt to defend narrow, craft interests, to ban the immigration of workers from backward countries (coolies—from China, etc.). This is the same spirit of aristocratism that one finds among workers in some of the “civilised” countries, who derive certain advantages from their privileged position, and are, therefore, inclined to forget the need for international class solidarity. But no one at the Congress defended this craft and petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness. The resolution fully meets the demands of revolutionary Social-Democracy.

Letter to the Secretary of the Socialist Propaganda League - Lenin

In our struggle for true internationalism & against “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favor of restrictions of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, & against the decisions of Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes.

And as much as I can agree with the practical concerns raised, I do think it seems readily susceptible to simply being of the mindset of moderate unions that aren't interest in a global revolution but the short term interest of keeping wages or workers rights. I'm wondering whether to an internationalist this may be considered not radical enough and doesn't show itself to have the aims of a world revolution enacting socialism. Without the interest in pursuing continuous revolutions, I imagine one would assume a repeat of what we see today, with the countries that had their revolutions, ending up Isolated and many now given in to participating in the Capitalism system.
Because if you don't pursue continuous revolutions internationally then what is one aiming for?
Perhaps there's a middle ground in which one can do this but seek to support workers internationally?
Because I see the sense behind the closed borders, so perhaps there's a more nuanced approach to immigration policy :\

When it comes to the attitudes of the working class I'm wondering whether anyone has speculations to how globalization may be implicated in creating the desirable conditions for some sort of cosmopolitan identity or something that makes people see an enemy in capitalist and not another worker. I suspect that the internationalist might argue that the working class is harmed by capitalism when mass immigration occurs and as such their anger needs to be somehow directed from the symptom to the cause. That it may satisfy short term aims of working class like moderate unions do but it doesn't address capitalist contradictions and as such, rinse and repeat.
Makes me think to a quote from John Berger in a video I watched:
GRID: Times of Crisis - John Berger and Noam Chomsky (4/22/14)
36:48-40:27

All prisoners are deprived, yet there are degrees of deprivation. And the difference of degree provokes envy. On this side of the walls, life is cheap.The very facelessness of the global tyranny encourages the hunt to find scapegoats and to find instantly definable enemies among other prisoners. The asphyxiating cells then become a madhouse... a madhouse and the poor attack the poor, the invaded pillage the invaded. Fellow prisoners should not be idealized, but without idealization, simply take note what they have in common, which is their unnecessary suffering, their endurance, their cunning is more significant, more telling than what separates them. And from this, from this, new forms of solidarity are being born and the new solidarities start with the mutual recognition of differences and multiplicity. So, this is life. Solidarity, not of masses, but of interconnectivity, far more appropriate to the conditions of a prison.

The authorities do their systematic best to keep prisoners misinformed about what is happening elsewhere in the world prison. They do not, in the aggressive sense of the term, indoctrinate. No, indoctrination is reserved for the small elite of traders, managerial market experts. For the mass prison population, the aim is not to activate them, but to keep them in a state of passive uncertainty and to remind them, to remind them remorselessly, that there is nothing in life but risk and that the earth is an unsafe place. This is done with carefully selected information, misinformation, commentary, rumors, fictions. Add in so far as this operation succeeds, it proposes and maintains, a hallucinating paradox. For it tricks the prison population into believing that the priority for each one of them is to make arrangements for their own personal protection and to acquire somehow, even though incarcerated, their own particular exemption from the common fate.

I hope others more familar with internationalism and communism comment, it's a great subject that I feel readily approachs serious discussion about the implications of globalization ^_^

[Rich]

We on the left are anti immigration.

No you're not. I've never come across a single far left group whether Stalinist, Trotskyist or Anarchist that opposes immigration.

[Decky]

Did comrade Stalin import millions of the most right wing people in the world into the Soviet Union and dump them into working class areas? No he killed right wing people. You obviously know nothing of Stalinism.

[Nonsense]

I know commies are internationalists who see the world along class lines but most people identify themselves with their country, city, village, etc.

Why aren't modern day socialists and communists more critical of immigration? How do you plan to build a movement amongst the working class if you don't oppose the arrival of immigrants who undercut their wages and working conditions and frequently hold views to the right of locals on social issues?


Most people don't read Marx. Most haven't developed class consciousness or see themselves as internationalists. They see immigrants and their own groups unemployment as directly connected.

Why would people trust you and work with you when you condone policies that undermine their material conditions?

Part of the reason is in how you describe 'Socialist', as being 'internationalist'.

If you look through recent Labour Party manifesto's, you would be forgiven for thinking that, that party in government, is running a budget for half the world, rather than looking after the interest of 'working - class' people & our own national interest.

This lends itself to a long-held view of mine, that, they are not really 'Socialist', but 'internationalist', but also that, they are basically hostile to the indigenous people of this country, unless you are a woman, 'gay', or 'foreign', preferably from the 'third-world' community.

Whenever people discuss 'free movement' in Europe, Labour MP's use the word 'immigration', thus taking the issue out of it's proper context, they are really ,'running' on the real issue, they cannot come to accept that ordinary 'British' people are 'Anti-Labour'.
This can all be condensed into one description of that party with it's alien ideology, namely, that, at root, it is SUBVERSIVE of 'British' values & like DAESH, it wishes to impose their 'internationalist' views on the people of this country that do NOT want it so.
As a long standing pensioner, I have never, ever voted 'Labour', I have fought workplace battles for 'social-justice' & won changes.

Unlike Labour, I 'walk-the-walk', whereas they, 'talk-the-talk' & that's it for them, no DELIVERY.

Ever since BLAIR & BROWN that party have consistently sold-out, abandoned & betrayed the indigenous 'working-class'.

In truth, they have ALWAYS taken the proverbials out of those who have ever voted for them.

The real issue, as well as the proper context with 'immigration', lies in the topic of the 'level' of a sustainable POPULATION, without having to print money to supply the services for over-population, or reducing the standard of living of the indigenous population.
It is not about the 'free movement' of EU citizens(IF) the rules in place for controlling immigration across the EU are strictly applied or enforced.
Neither is it about 'austerity' or the 'Nazification' of applied public spending, by attacking the poor,by making them pay for the corruption of New Labour MP's\PM's & the banking collapse of 2008.

That Labour have absolutely FAILED even to support any community attacked by the TORIES & why would they when they would have had exactly the same policies making the points about being 'anti-austerity' as pure dishonesty.

[Donna]

It's a crisis of the left that ultimately goes back to the rejection of Bolshevism by the European working class, who preferred fascism instead. The left has spent almost a century trying to understand why this happened (especially through psychoanalysis) and this retrospective effort eventually coalesced with an alliance with global capitalism in a wholly subversive effort to "break" the working class and their ontological tendencies.

It will never happen, of course. But the continuous, highly dynamic interaction between essentialism and materialism is what makes life interesting and is perhaps the source of its élan vital.

[Ombrageux]

Unfortunately, the modern left hates Western and European nations and - for various reasons, partly self-hatred, partly anti-European racism, partly utopianism - wants to destroy them.

[Godstud]

It all depends on what country you talk to...
For Canada, immigration is a key to prosperity
In 2011, there were 249,000 new permanent residents, after a record year of 281,000 in 2010. (The official planned admission range is between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents a year.) That is not counting the 190,800 temporary foreign workers that were admitted in 2011 as well as the 98,400 foreign students who came to benefit from our universities and may decide to stay and put their skills to use in Canada’s industries.

There are many myths floating around about immigrants, ranging from them being low-skilled workers to them having difficulty integrating into the labour force. A quick read through the OECD’s 2013 International Migration Outlook debunks all of those myths – and makes the reader realize just how well Canada is faring on the immigration front.

We also note that a large percentage of every province’s immigrants are in the 20-to-44 age group, meaning that the benefits of household formation are spread all across Canada. This helps explain why the housing market in Canada has been so resilient during the past five years.

I am happy to see that one of Canada’s strengths is clearly working in its favour. As Canadians, we need foreign talent to sustain the country’s demographic and economic growth, and we have just the labour market to attract it. Canadians need immigration just as much as immigrants need a destination such as Canada. Immigration, as it turns out, is most likely the key to Canada’s prosperity.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... e14711281/

[Political Interest]

This is something I don't understand at all.

In the Warsaw Pact countries, China and North Korea there was no mass-immigration. Immigration did happen but never on a massive scale.

Yet the left of today will lay down their lives to ensure the borders are fully open.

They would rather accept capitalism provided there is free movement of people than a command economy with closed borders.

[AFAIK]

@Decky

I asked the same question of commies on reddit and they were all pro-immigration and felt that since the working classes in the first world benefit from imperialism they deserve to be brought down a peg.

They had a thread stickied at the top proclaiming the USSR to be capitalist so I'm not sure about them. I think the argument was that the economy was capitalist not the govt, to be fair.

[Political Interest]

I asked the same question of commies on reddit and they were all pro-immigration and felt that since the working classes in the first world benefit from imperialism they deserve to be brought down a peg.

They are not real communists. They do not have the Soviet spirit which is critical to being a communist.

Real communism in the east was always about a quiet working class nationalist pride.

These people lack this and have nothing but contempt for their own nations.

They therefore cannot be taken seriously or viewed as real reds.

The fact that they can even take the stance that the first world workers benefit from imperialism just goes to show what type of people they are. They are just liberals coloured red. They have nothing but contempt for their own working class.

[Decky]

PI has the truth. They are Kurt style "communists."

[AFAIK]

I followed up by asking about emigration from USSR or Cuba and only one of them thought it was a bad thing. None of the rest expresses concern about third world communities being left without hospitals because all the doctors and nurses had abandoned them for higher pay overseas.

[Thompson_NCL]

We on the left are anti immigration.

You might be. The overwhelming majority of leftists in the West are not anti immigration.

[Potemkin]

They had a thread stickied at the top proclaiming the USSR to be capitalist so I'm not sure about them. I think the argument was that the economy was capitalist not the govt, to be fair.

They were clearly a bunch of 'Red Alert' Commies. Also known as 'Trotskyists'.

[The Immortal Goon]

To be clear for the correctness of Potemkin's statement, Trotsky detested the idea that the USSR was capitalist.

There is no doubt that the USSR today bears very little resemblance to that type of Soviet republic that Lenin depicted in 1917 (no permanent bureaucracy or permanent army, the right of recalling all elected officials at any time and the active control over them by the masses “regardless of who the individual may be,” etc.). The domination of the bureaucracy over the country, as well as Stalin’s domination over the bureaucracy, have well-nigh attained their absolute consummation. But what conclusions would follow from this? There are some who say that since the actual state that has emerged from the proletarian revolution does not correspond to ideal a priori norms, therefore they turn their backs on it. This is political snobbery, common to pacifist-democratic, libertarian, anarcho-syndicalist and, generally, ultraleft circles of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.

The defense of the USSR, even if he didn't agree with Stalin, was paramount:

We must formulate our slogans in such a way that the workers see clearly just what we are defending in the USSR, (state property and planned economy), and against whom we are conducting a ruthless struggle (the parasitic bureaucracy and their Comintern). We must not lose sight for a single moment of the fact that the question of overthrowing the Soviet bureaucracy is for us subordinate to the question of preserving state property in the means of production of the USSR: that the question of preserving state property in the means of production in the USSR is subordinate for us to the question of the world proletarian revolution.

Trotskyists, on the other hand, reject Trotsky in order to adhere to Trotsky:

From now on it is clear that the only genuine Trotskyists are those who reject the dogmas of orthodox Trotskyism in order to preserve the revolutionary essence of Trotsky’s thought, the self-emancipation of the working class.

What did Trotsky get wrong? He didn't acknowledge that the USSR was capitalist and instead followed Lenin's line that it was, "a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it." So now Lenin was wrong about the Soviet Union. And if Lenin was wrong, we can go further back into the abyss further. Which is not necessarily bad for the scholar or the curious, but for someone saying that they adhere to the most strict form of Trotsky and then unravel the Russian Revolution is a self-indulgent absurdity.

--

As per the OP, I just got done addressing this in some detail in another thread.

In essence, the communist recognizes the fact that the bourgeoisie has tied the world together and acts as an international class while at the same time representing and maintaining its own form of contradictory nationalism. This is a fact, not good or bad, but something that had been accomplished more than a century ago.

But what to do about it?

The instinct of many workers is, perhaps, understandable but only play into the liberal capitalist market.

Let's say that the "native" workers team up and exclude the foreign laborers. This occurred prominently in my own region as white workers worked together in the AFL, Knights of Labour, and other organizations to protect their interests.

In doing so, the excluded Chinese and Irish workers did more work for cheaper and were patronized by the bourgeoisie.

With enough push, the Exclusion Acts were put into place and the Chinese (most prominently, but also other groups) were not allowed to come into the United States.

Where though, did the production go?

So the tactics of the AFL, KoL, and others made things worse.

At the same time they were hanging, murdering, and beating communists and Wobblies (not mutually exclusive groups) that tried to organize Internationals and international unions.

If the bourgeoisie is going to play the local laborer as fools on an international market (and they will), then organization must take place at an international arena. Whether the Wobblies' solution (and I'm simplifying) of creating a system where the Mexican workers would refuse to work at a cheaper plant in return for American labour's boycott of Dow chemical for poisoning Mexicans; or a more political unity in the form of an International might be debatable.

But we must organize to find a solution based upon the reality in which we live. Simply repeating the failures of the past will not help in the least.

[Political Interest]

Trotskyites were never real communists. They never established power in any state. Stalinism and its derivatives defined communism and it is Stalinism that shapes the popular memory of this ideology.