Why denounce individual acts of violence and terrorism

The apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania has surely exacerbated our country's deepening political crisis. The rhetoric emanating from fascistic Republicans, such as when Trump declared that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country," and from the capitalists making trillions off of U.S. imperialism, for decades, has encouraged a war-hungry society.

As a country, we are increasingly accustomed to mass shootings, violent crime, threats of civil war, racist police violence, attacks on free speech, and repression of student and youth protest. Sabre-rattling and the continuous supplying of weapons to Israel and Ukraine, while plowing record amounts of resources into police departments and "Cop Cities" have been largely bipartisan affairs. It's safe to say that violence is a recognizable feature of U.S. politics both at home and abroad.

It is the culture of political reaction and retribution propagated by the Republicans, the war-culture of U.S. imperialism supported by both parties, and the growing inequality between the working-class and the ruling class that leads to events such as the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. These capitalist policies, along with everyday exploitation and oppression, form the basis of the constant violence that faces our working-class.

When faced with hopelessness from the anarchy of production under capitalism, individuals may feel compelled to act as lone wolf, as is the case of the Trump assassination attempt, or by joining mass movements of either the left or the right. The underlying causes of the crisis of governance in our country are largely a result of monopoly's concentration of wealth and profit on the one hand, and a decline in the standard of living for working people on the other.

As stated in the main report to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA)'s 32nd Convention, Forward Together, disenchantment with the American political system is far reaching, including the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and both political parties. "Less than one in five expressed trust in the federal government, with only six in ten having confidence in the future of the political system." In the fall of 2023, for example, only four percent believed the political system was functioning well.

Since the 1960's, the price of food is up by four times and the cost of rent has increased by 64%. The average U.S. worker makes less a week than we did 50 years ago. Real wages today are lower than they were in 1973. Meanwhile, in the same period, the monopolists, the top 1%, have doubled their wealth and own more than 80% of the capital in the U.S. Union density in our country has plummeted from 35% in the 1950's to 10% in 2024.

There is a clear connection, as pointed out by the Poor People's Campaign, between a functioning democratic system and political economy. The lack of trade union representation, a significant feature of working-class political expression, coupled with an assault on voting rights driven by reactionary Republican and corporate interests, leads to public policies being largely decided by the money and not the many. Are these reactionary policies not also considered "political violence "?

Around 63% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck and 140 million people in the U.S. are poor or low income-roughly 43% of the country. Twenty-four million of these people are Black and represent 60% of all Black people. There are similar statistics for Latino and Native Americans as well. Sixty-six million white people, the majority of the poor people in America, are being offered a toxic brew of racism, sexism, and xenophobia almost daily from corporate media. White men without college degrees have seen their income drop by 13% since 1979.

It's no wonder why a demagogue like Trump and the Republicans, backed by the most reactionary, chauvinistic elements of monopoly capital, have spent decades fomenting false consciousness to the American public based on racist, sexist ideas and myths of white supremacy and the "Great Replacement." They propagandize our working-class in rural communities to associate public policies that uplift all working people - such as higher corporate taxes, public education, labor laws, environmental protections, voting rights, etc.-with racist dog whistles and anti-communism. They seek to discourage the American working-class from coming together to struggle for their own self-interests and for mutual benefit of its component parts by sowing disunity.

Using the tactics of Nixon's Southern Strategy, today's reactionaries hide their racist and anti-worker views in terms such as "entitlement programs," a "culture of poverty," "anti-elitism," and so forth in order to "reclaim America" and to "take our country back." They cynically call to "protect women" with anti-trans agendas while taking away the national right to an abortion. They commit acts of violence such as agitating for the January 6th riots, the 2017 Charlottesville murder of anti-fascist Heather Heyer, the plot for terrorists to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan, the politically supported genocide of Palestinians, the bankrolling of neo-Nazis in Europe, and the crimes against humanity on the U.S. border.

Is it any wonder that violence and the threat of mass shootings have magnified under such conditions? There are hundreds of millions of guns in circulation among the population already. Is turning up the heat on an already boiling situation in the best interest of our working-class? Is it in the best interest of our Party right now to say nothing in the face of this increasing violence?

The role of the Communist Party USA is to lead our class in the struggle for a better society and to point the way out of the violent culture that capitalism fosters. Our job is to engage in the struggles that our class is fighting for in the here and now, while providing a scientific analysis of the causes of our problems, the necessary strategy and tactics to solve them, and the principled unity required to win. Our task is to fight for socialism and to build working-class power.

The pamphlet, The Unity Imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance, pointed out that the notion that small, highly committed groups could successfully contend for political power was frontally challenged by Frederick Engels: "The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses," he wrote. "When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act."

Just because non-violent forms of struggle, such as democratic, community organization, civil rights, and trade-union organizing, seem unnecessary for some "Left" radicals does not mean that the millions of working people see these forms as outdated or ineffective.

Lenin said in Revolutionary Adventurism, the "Left" radicals "do not realize that their predilection for terrorism is intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its' class struggle."

The call for acts of violence on principle has more in common with metaphysics than it does dialectical materialism. To elevate an abstract concept, on principle, above the realities and developments of the class struggle in the here and now is a fatal, idealist error.

As Lenin wrote, "To attempt to answer yes or no to the question whether any particular means of struggle should be used, without making a detailed examination of the concrete situation of the given movement at the given stage of its development, means completely to abandon the Marxist position."

Because we are calling for non-violent, mass struggle as a means to win a better world today for working people does not mean we are oblivious of the violence that may come from the ruling class. As stated in our Party program, "We fight for and commit ourselves to building enough unity to win socialism peacefully, though we recognize that the ruling class may initiate violence against progressive and radical movements in an attempt to maintain its power."

Furthermore, we have no illusions that "the capitalists will willingly give up power and control unless they have no possibility of successfully stopping social transformation by initiating capitalist class-led violence." It is not the isolated adventurism of the few that can defeat such a reaction. It is only the unified power of the conscious working-class that can overcome counter-revolutionary violence by the capitalist class.

It is on the basis of rejecting terrorism, rejecting individualism, and championing mass working-class struggle that the Communist Party denounces individual acts of violence and terror. The U.S. working-class does indeed want to change the status quo at the present, but not through terroristic violence. Take, for instance, a single mother working two jobs and trying to provide for her kids. She certainly doesn't have the time or even desire to live with violence, much less engage in it.

Gus Hall, former Chairperson of the Communist Party USA, stated that, "individual acts of violence are methods of a class that history is rejecting. The working-class, the carrier of all that is progressive and the class that is leading the way toward social progress and socialist society free of violence, relies on masses in motion, mass movements, and mass struggles."

We all want to live in peace and security with our needs met and the value of what we create under our control. That is why we call for mass struggle using every tool in the toolbox against the monopolies and warmongers seeking to divide us even further. We fight for a mass movement, led by a working-class majority, that can command power using strikes, occupations, boycotts, sit-ins, and mass protest. Working-class unity in struggle is our ultimate weapon.

Images: UAW workers call on their union endorse BDS (Creative Commons); The GOP is the imminent threat by special to CPUSA; Why 340,000 UPS workers are preparing to strike in the US by peoplesdispatch.org (Creative Commons);

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