[Political Interest]

In most Anglosphere countries I have noticed that communist movements were very different to communist movements in Europe and Asia. One notable feature is that they did not combine socialism with nationalism or an authoritarian political culture. Their emphasis always appeared somewhat subversive, not merely against the ruling regime but against society itself. Even the most orthodox Stalinist ML parties in places like the UK, NZ and the USA were nothing like their counterparts in East Germany, the Soviet Union or North Korea. The lack of emphasis on the nationalism of the working class, shame at colonialism and a desire for mass immigration are all good examples. In the socialist world there was working class nationalism and almost no mass immigration.

And yet Lenin told socialists in America that refusing to accept immigration was racist. The USSR and Warsaw Pact barely took any immigration. Why was there this difference?

What exactly were Anglosphere communists trying to build in their countries and why was the character of Western communsim so different to that of Central/Eastern Europe and Asia?

[The Immortal Goon]

There is a connection between nationalism and socialism in Anglosphere countries, but they tend to use it correctly.

If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.

England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed.

Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin - is only national recreancy.

It would be tantamount to a public declaration that our oppressors had so far succeeded in inoculating us with their perverted conceptions of justice and morality that we had finally decided to accept those conceptions as our own, and no longer needed an alien army to force them upon us.

As a Socialist I am prepared to do all one man can do to achieve for our motherland her rightful heritage – independence; but if you ask me to abate one jot or tittle of the claims of social justice, in order to conciliate the privileged classes, then I must decline.

Lenin and Trotsky both wrote in awe of what Connolly had accomplished.

James Connolly was also a co-founder of the IWW in the United States. The IWW's strategy to this, if I am to simplify (and I am) was that capitalism is a worldwide system that needs a worldwide solution. Thus the KoL and AFL were both wrong in their basic (though more nuanced then I'm providing) plan for action:

1. Get all nativists into a union to exclude the aliens.

2. The aliens, the Chinese and in some cases the Irish, are forced to do worse work for cheaper. Thus they get all the work.

3. Force the Exclusion Act through to stem the tide of cheap labour coming into the country.

4. All the work goes to China, and unions are (eventually) forced to their knees groveling to keep what jobs there are today.

This process starts in regard to China in the 19th century, and repeated over and over again until today when mouth-breathers swear that a wall will do what the Pacific Ocean could not in stopping manufacturing from just moving to wear the cheaper labour exists.

At least if that's what you mean by, "nationalism."

If you mean patting yourself on the back for having happened to be born, then James Connolly has something to say about that too:

Not that I believe it makes much difference where a man was born.

The one thing certain about it is that no sensible man can take a pride in being born an Irishman. What had he to do with it that he should be proud?

He did not carefully sketch out beforehand the location in which he desired to be born, and then instruct his mother accordingly. Whether he was born in Ireland or in Zululand, in the Coombe or in Whitechapel, he most certainly was not consulted about the matter. Why then, this pride?

The location of your birthplace was a mere accident – as much beyond your control as the fact I was born so beautiful was beyond mine. Hem.

And you don’t see me putting on airs.

The fact is that bourgeois nationalism is bourgeois nationalism. It serves the interests of capitalism in making the bourgeoisie an international class that can cross borders, while restricting the rights of the proletariat to move freely. The rich can profit in anyway they wish, the poor cannot.

Trying to figure out a way to incorporate a way to keep bourgeois ‎cultural hegemony without the side-effects against the proletariat is a losing battle. You need to give it all up and smash the international system in order to make these things work.

Just today the US congress had to scold drug manufacturers for raising prices for no reason, allowing millions to die so that they could have a better quarter. What in the world makes you think that they're going to simply smile and start paying everyone higher wages in your country when people in Tanzania will process food for European fat-asses in exchange for discarded fish guts?

[SolarCross]

In most Anglosphere countries I have noticed that communist movements were very different to communist movements in Europe and Asia. One notable feature is that they did not combine socialism with nationalism or an authoritarian political culture. Their emphasis always appeared somewhat subversive, not merely against the ruling regime but against society itself. Even the most orthodox Stalinist ML parties in places like the UK, NZ and the USA were nothing like their counterparts in East Germany, the Soviet Union or North Korea. The lack of emphasis on the nationalism of the working class, shame at colonialism and a desire for mass immigration are all good examples. In the socialist world there was working class nationalism and almost no mass immigration.

And yet Lenin told socialists in America that refusing to accept immigration was racist. The USSR and Warsaw Pact barely took any immigration. Why was there this difference?

What exactly were Anglosphere communists trying to build in their countries and why was the character of Western communsim so different to that of Central/Eastern Europe and Asia?

I'd hazard a guess that the reason for that is they never really had a shot at power in the anglo-sphere, so they had the luxury of staying fairly close to ideological purity without consequence. It is a different game altogether when you are in the governor's seat or are within arms reach of grabbing it. When you are a player and not a spectator, expedience becomes your tutor and your master, so ideology must be demoted to decoration.