In the last week, two developments have happened that show the U.S. government’s campaign of repression is unfolding faster than many of us might have believed. One, the PSL has been asked to provide records of its communications under threat of criminal charges, with the Senate implicitly accusing the org of coordinating terrorist activities. Two, the Democratic Party-aligned streamer Hasan Piker has come under an investigation of a similar nature, confirming that the protections he believed he had aren’t as real as they appeared. Last month when he was detained by the border patrol, Hasan willingly talked to the police, evidently thinking this wouldn’t put him in danger. But now he and PSL are getting targeted in these ways, even though both of them are controlled opposition.
This proves how urgent it is for organizers to prepare their cadres to go underground, and to survive whatever attacks the state will next direct at us. The forces on the left that have been compromised are getting targeted first because their opportunism made them vulnerable; the state had gotten them to hand over access to their secrets, making them the best targets to use for creating a wider precedent.
When communists like myself describe PSL as controlled opposition, we do so in a way that’s compatible with solidarity for the PSL members who are being persecuted. We have sound evidence that the imperial state’s Democrat wing has used PSL to manage the left; during the anti-ICE protests alone, the org has done things that seriously harm our popular movements, such as opening protest fronts in Latino neighborhoods that will only be put in danger by this.
This is the PSL leadership’s biggest problem: that they don’t want to be led by the communities which they claim to be helping, and operate with the central goal of maximizing their NGO funding. It’s essential that we recognize both the need for solidarity with PSL’s members, and this harmful record of the org’s leaders; because not only is this the honest analysis to put forth, but recognizing the leadership’s opportunism is key to understanding why the membership has been put at such risk.
When the PSL decided to get funding through the NGOs, such as Roy Singham’s philanthropic partner the Justice and Education Fund, the org had already opened itself up to state infiltration and entrapment. For any NGO to have the prominence and connections that the JED has, the State Department needs to view it as useful. There must be an understanding that those benefiting from the funds will act in a way which is compatible with the ruling class. When an org has made this kind of deal, it becomes extremely easy for the state to make the move that it’s just made against PSL; the participants have walked into a trap, and their information has been compromised from the start.
It’s like how the state had successfully tricked Hasan into believing the cops wouldn’t go after him, so he wouldn’t need to exercise his right to remain silent. Ultimately both Hasan and the PSL leadership may be prosecuted, despite their high status within the compatible left; I used to think the PSL’s leaders would be spared, but now that Hasan is being investigated I’m not even sure about this.
We must respond by building up both the front guard and the rear guard within our movement. As we mobilize to aid the legal defenses of the PSL’s members, we’ll have to create structures within our orgs that are capable of operating clandestinely. We can’t let the reality of the modern surveillance state dissuade us from this; it’s been done before, and we can do it again.
The Communist Party of South Africa wrote that “The enemy tries to give the impression that it is impossible” to engage in below-ground work. The Party observed how “The rulers boast about all our people they have killed or captured. They point to the freedom fighters locked up in the prisons. But a lot of that talk is sheer bluff. Of course it is impossible to wage a struggle without losses. The very fact, however, that the South African Communist Party and African National Congress have survived years of illegality is proof that the regime cannot stop our noble work. It is because we have been mastering secret work that we have been able, more and more, to outwit the enemy.”
In the present stage, where we can still operate above-ground but are getting closer to being criminalized, what we must do is take on the same habits of organizers who’ve already been driven underground. “Secret methods are based on common sense and experience,” continued the Party, “But they must be mastered like an art. Discipline, vigilance and self-control are required. A resistance organiser in Nazi-occupied France who was never captured said this was because he ‘never used the telephone and never went to public places like bars, restaurants and post offices’. He was living a totally underground life. But even those members of a secret movement who have a legal existence must display the qualities we have referred to.”
These prominent opportunists who’ve gotten in legal trouble failed to practice those habits. They acted like the system would always protect them, when the system has always seen them as disposable. Now the imperial state is getting rid of the old pretenses of liberty, making those who’ve aligned with its liberal wing into some of the crackdown’s first targets.
We won’t save our movement by replicating the tailist patterns that helped enable this repression; we must not act like any one wing of the ruling class will protect us. This is an error that many have made when it comes to the second Trump administration, with Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel being portrayed as an anti-establishment hero by prominent parts of the “alternative” media. The psyop about Trump’s White House being an asset to the anti-imperialist movement has been highly effective, and this is because of the ways the left has sold out; the people are looking for ways to fight back against their ruling class, which can be exploited by both left opportunists and right opportunists.
Our only path forward is to build a front that’s based within the popular masses, as opposed to any attempt at gaining favor from our class enemies. This will entail fortifying our organizations by mastering secret work, as the Communist Party of South Africa instructs; but such activities are downstream from our alignment with the people, which is the most important thing.
We’ll take these internal measures because we know that as long as we keep advancing the people’s interests, and not become compromised by the enemy, these measures will bring us to victory. And because we’re willing to go into the masses in a serious way, we’ll be able to better carry forward the above-ground struggle, which is what the state fears the most. The secret work aspect will act as a safety net, and should we be forced underground, our mass work will have put us in a far greater place of strength.
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