This article was originally published here on The Virginia Worker. “The workers will not allow themselves to be disunited by sugary speeches about national culture, or “national cultural autonomy”. The workers of all nations together, concertedly, uphold full freedom and complete equality of rights in organizations common to all–and that is the guarantee of genuine […]

Russian soldiers, most of whom were plucked from the working class, have advanced in Ukraine. They are laying waste to, among other things, working class neighborhoods, and turning life upside down for the people of Ukraine. Furthermore, since 2014, the pro-Russian population of Ukraine’s Donbass region has been under assault by neo-Nazi aligned forces. Overall, around 13,000 have been killed, mostly in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the 8 years leading up to the current hostilities

We write to you to share our stance on this callous rejection of both DSA’s democratic will and proletarian internationalism, to open lines of communication with those in your organization that are disaffected by this inaction, and to illuminate a path forward. While we are not members of DSA, your organization is the largest and most well known group in the United States that calls itself socialist– when your public-facing officials aid the violent crushing of the Palestinian people in the name of socialism, it affects the working class’s perception of the Left in general (not to mention the impact it has on Palestinian workers). And if you allow your leaders to sabotage the priorities to which you, the rank and file Marxist members, have committed yourselves you will fail at achieving any meaningful movement towards socialism in spite of your impressive strength in numbers. We aim to show that only a Leninist mode of organization will allow you to achieve the goals you are pursuing and which DSA’s highest leaders are now openly opposing.

The summer of 2020 saw more than fifteen-million people hit the streets. Fifteen-million people fed up with the legally-sanctioned murder of Black people, fed up with monuments to slavers, fed up with 400 years of white supremacy. They faced the police, the National Guard, and racist vigilantes. They endured vehicular attacks, beatings and shootings and gassings. By June 2020, these demonstrators won the support of two-thirds of Americans. Police abolition, a demand once restricted to the country’s tiny leftist subculture, became a visible slogan and a hotly-debated issue. Many, including some in Richmond, assumed that a revolution—the revolution—was at hand. After this long, hot summer we’ve settled into a cold winter for the progressive movement. Support for Black Lives Matter has dropped, lifelong conservative Joe Biden has become the president, and demonstrations have become fewer and smaller. In Richmond, Levar Stoney and right-wing City Councillors have won reelection. Meanwhile, the conspiratorial reactionary right has been whipped into a frenzy. What went wrong, and can we get back on course?

In the past month, members of the Communist League of Richmond and hundreds of other protestors have felt the burning sensation of pepper spray and witnessed demonstrations targeted with tear gas and flash-bangs. The lawlessness of law enforcement has been on full-display and well-documented: vehicular attacks, rubber-coated bullets, foam rounds, physical assaults… to what end? Around the nation, state and local police departments, federal law enforcement agencies, the National Guard, and racist vigilantes have sought to terrorize demonstrators into submission, resulting in more than a few deaths. But these egregious assaults are not the sole threat to the mass protest movement — perhaps even more dangerous is the threat posed by liberal politicians and aligned non-profits which seek to co-opt, disarm, and pacify the movement for their own benefit. While many protestors know to bring umbrellas and gloves, very few are prepared to present an organized front against these politicians and grifters.

A litany of murdered African Americans, all victims of extrajudicial execution and state-sanctioned racist violence. All of us who march and demonstrate know at some level that these lynchings aren’t the product of individual racists in law enforcement – that the entire system of law enforcement agencies from state and local police to the FBI and ICE is guilty. But liberal reformists and opportunistic corporate marketing teams want the conversation to stop here. “If only we banned chokeholds and had civilian review boards, we could solve police brutality of Black and Brown people.” If only white allies had more yard signs and voted Democrat. Reformist non-profits and politicians are lining up to co-opt the mass demonstrations and public outrage into things that serve their own aims and interests. Just consider Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who allowed Dominion Power’s CEO to select the superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, used all of his political capital to advocate for the Navy Hill ‘development’, and effectively ignored the murder of Marcus David Peters by the RPD until it was politically expedient to do otherwise. Does anyone really believe such an opportunistic politician so thoroughly identified with Richmond’s business class will stand for real solutions to the problems Black workers in our city face?

RENT FREEZE NOW! DEFEND RENT STRIKERS! MAKE THE CAPITALIST CLASS PAY FOR THE CRISIS! Our society runs thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears of the working class. It is workers who produce and transport the goods and services we need and who produce the value upon which our economy depends.

We, the undersigned, representing several groups of the anti-capitalist movement in Virginia, wish to make clear that we completely reject any attempt by the new Democrat majority state government to pass and enforce any new “gun control” laws. Liberals see the issue of guns and violence in abstraction. For them, taking away guns will end violence. However, as socialists, we understand that violence exists within the systems of exploitation and oppression inherent in the capitalist system. History shows us that these laws will do nothing to address the root causes of violence in our communities. They will, however, do a number of other things.