With new FBI and Department of “Justice” (DOJ) attacks expected in early January, a defense, mobilization and information session attracted hundreds of allies of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). On Friday, December 23 they zoomed into the “Emergency Mass Meeting: Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” The APSP told its supporters that it expects indictments in early January 2023 and possibly sooner.

Indictments could include many more than the four names listed as “unindicted co-conspirators” during raids of July 29, 2022: Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Party Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel.

At 5 am that morning, the FBI invaded multiple St. Louis locations, including the private residence of Omali Yeshitela and his wife and APSP Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela and the Uhuru Solidarity Center, as well as the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg FL.

During the December 23 webinar, Yeshitela vividly recalled that flashbang grenades were set off and laser points were directed at his chest when he opened the door of their home, and a drone almost hit Ona when she came down the stairs. Both of them were handcuffed and the entire Black working-class St. Louis neighborhood was under siege for hours. The federal agents seized all of their devices, such as computers and phones, thereby seriously hampering their political work.

As reported by Toward Freedom, in St. Petersburg FBI agents lured Akilé Anai “outside her home, saying her car had been broken into. Upon opening her car, they forced her to hand over her devices.”

The FBI and DOJ claimed that the raids were sparked by Yeshitela’s having conversations with with Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian they accused of spreading “Russian propaganda.” During the webinar Yeshitela described how insulting and demeaning it was to insinuate that the APSP is unable to analyze African people’s state of oppression and make decisions for itself but can only reach conclusions after Russians tell it what to think.

This is particularly chilling for those who do solidarity work with Latin America, Africa and Asia. According to the precedent set by the July 29 raids and indictments, anyone who meets with any representative of another country could face criminal charges under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which the APSP expects to be used to justify their bullying. Actions against the APSP could lay the foundation for indicting me for interviewing and writing about Cuban doctors.

Legal abuse could be leveled against everyone else who has visited the island and explained what the revolution has accomplished. The FBI/DOJ could indict Monthly Review for publishing my book on Cuban Health Care along with every other publisher who releases books on Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and other countries that have resisted US imperialism.

A noticeable exception would be citizens and lawmakers who meet with and are influenced by agents of Israel. They have no reason to fear harassment. Of course, it might be quite different for those having the temerity to meet with Palestinians.

After the raids, the Black Alliance for Peace announced that it would “concentrate its efforts on not only opposing the U.S. war agenda globally but the war and repression being waged on Black and Brown communities within U.S. borders.”

A major purpose of the December 23 webinar was to build nationwide and international support for the July 29 victims so people are prepared to respond when the indictments come down. In light of this, the Green Party of St. Louis issued a statement which appears below. Following it are the APSP’s “Principles of Unity” which it asks organizations to endorse. You can communicate your support at the website HANDSOFFUHURU.ORG.

The Other Barrel

What is written above only describes one barrel of the corporate state’s shotgun. The other barrel consists of efforts to shut down the many projects under the APSP umbrella. They simultaneously offer meaningful life-changing needs for those in poor Black US communities and provide examples of what a socialist society could look like.

The projects are part of what the APSP calls its “Black Power Blueprint” (BPB) and what socialist theorists might call “concretization” of its ideas which “prefigure” a post-capitalist society. The BPB’s efforts may be the most extensive integration of theory and practice occurring in the US today.

Perhaps the prime example is Uhuru Wa Kulea (African Women’s Health Center) which has a vision “to provide health and self-care programs that reinforce our traditional African culture, and invest in the future of our community with doula and childbirth educator certification programs along with opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.” Concepts for the Center rely heavily on the health care system of Cuba, which now has life expectancy greater than the US, due to its focus on women and children.

APSP-related efforts also include

• The Uhuru House Community Center which transformed a condemned building into a three-story community event and program space named Akwaaba Hall;

• A Community Basketball Court to allow for “spirited youth programs” and tournaments;

• Murals at the Gary Brooks Community Garden that has been in operation for two years and at the recently completed Community Basketball Court which depict “Black families controlling our own culture and food economy by planting, growing and harvesting food from the garden;”

• Completed renovation of a 4-plex apartment building devoted to housing for the African Independence Workforce Program which creates jobs for those re-entering the Black community from the prison system;

• The Uhuru Jiko Kitchen and Bakery/Café which, once the refurbishing of an existing commercial structure is completed, will bring African economic and cultural life to a depressed commercial area and will help stop gentrification;

• A planned program for the Black Power Square where condemned buildings have been removed to make way for retail opportunities by utilizing shipping containers to house community-based small businesses and create jobs.

The above are in St. Louis. APSP also runs Uhuru Foods and Pies in Oakland CA and St. Petersburg FL, a community garden/farm in Huntsville AL, furniture stores in Oakland CA and Philadelphia PA, a radio station in St. Petersburg FL and the Burning Spear newspaper.

The goal of attacking the APSP leaders is to exterminate every project and every component of the BPB which Omali Yeshitela speaks of as “building duel and contending power,” funded to a significant degree through reparations raised by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM). The government, of course, has virtually unlimited police and legal resources at its disposal to drown out dissent. If it can force the APSP to divert its energies and limited budget to its legal defense, the FBI/DOJ can undermine projects and terrorize solidarity activists even if it imprisons very few.

This is the message from one barrel of the snarling state:

“Don’t hope for a new life …

“don’t imagine a new world…

“and certainly don’t try to build one …

“because capitalism is all you can look forward to.”

The other barrel of the shotgun screams that efforts by US citizens to build solidarity with victims of global oppression will be met with the most vicious attacks the corporate state can muster.

Statement by Don Fitz on behalf of the Green Party of St. Louis, December 23, 2022.

The Green Party of St. Louis fully agrees with the right of African people to advocate and organize for the unification, liberation and self-determination of Africa and African People as laid out in the “Principles of Unity.”

The FBI raid of July 29 was not just against the APSP. It was an attack on all working for social justice and liberation.

As has happened many times before, governmental violence was unleashed first against Black/African victims to serve as an example.

The Biden administration is fully responsible for opening one of the most repressive eras in US history.

We would have to go back to the racist president Woodrow Wilson and his imprisonment of Eugene Debs to find a case of people being arrested so blatantly for their political beliefs.

Even during the US war against Viet Nam, people were not arrested merely for listening to Vietnamese views or visiting North Viet Nam.

The current actions of the Biden administration are a message that no one can question his proxy war against Russia – a message that Americans have lost the right to make their own decisions.

The events of July 29, 2022 are meant to intimidate any who stand in solidarity with movements and countries who are struggling for their liberation, such as Cuba.

They are warning that the same could happen to supporters of revolutionary Venezuela.

The FBI raids are a threat to those who defend the right of Nicaragua to chart its own course.

Indictment of Uhuru members aids and abets those criminals who overthrew the democratically elected government in Peru on Dec 7, 2022.

Biden’s proxy war against Russia gives lie to his supposed opposition to climate change. One of the real reasons for Biden’s “Hate Russia!” campaign is to allow US corporations to corner the market of fossil fuels in Ukraine and force Europe to buy US natural gas at absurdly high prices.

Under Evo Morales, Bolivia sought to control its own lithium, a critical element for “alternative” energy. When he was violently overthrown, the Trump/Biden supporter Elon Musk (of Tesla fame) proclaimed “We will coup whoever we want!”

The great majority of the world’s cobalt, also essential for “alternative” energy, lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (home to many other essential minerals). Efforts of the Biden administration to destroy the APSP reveals his plan for anyone who advocates self-determination for Africa.

Principles of Unity

We unite with the right of African people to advocate and organize for the unification, liberation and self-determination of Africa and African People.

• We denounce the FBI and US government’s attacks on the African Liberation Movement historically and currently

• We demand that the US government drop the charges against any member of the African People’s Socialist Party, the Uhuru Movement and those named and implied in the indictment and warrants

• We demand the return of all confiscated property to the Uhuru Movement and compensation for damages and payment of reparations for the attacks

• We demand an end to FBI surveillance and infiltration of the Uhuru Movement and release of all documents on the Uhuru Movement since the 1960s

• We denounce the assault on the anti-colonial activity and programs of the African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru Movement such as the Black Power Blueprint and other economic institutions and projects.

Find out more about the repression! At 6 pm CT, January 9, 2023 join the APSP update on the indictments and defense. Click on https://handsoffuhuru.org/ and scroll to “Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” to register. At 7:30 pm CT, January 11, 2023 the Missouri Green Party will have a webinar on “The Long Story of Repression in the US.” Email the author at fitzdon@aol.com to get information and to register.

Don Fitz (fitzdon@aol.com) is on the Editorial Board of Green Social Thought. He was the 2016 candidate of the Missouri Green Party for Governor. His book, Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution, has been available since June 2020.

On the surface, degrowth sounds like an economics of scarcity, as many on both the right and left have been quick to allege. But in fact exactly the opposite is true.

The closure of the last shipyard in Belfast would end centuries of ship building in the city. A group of workers are demanding the U.K. nationalize the yards.

Venezuela has become a popular argument against socialism amongst conservatives because of the deep economic crisis it is currently traversing. Defenders of the Bolivarian project, though, say that US sanctions and economic war are to blame for the crisis. Greg Wilpert presents an analysis that tries to take all the factors into account

After nearly a century, it seems that the idea of Socialism is finally gaining popular appeal. Almost 40 years of Neoliberal economic orthodoxy is taking a toll upon society and the environment. Growing inequality, anthropogenic climate change, endless wars, financial crises, and a government more responsive to the needs of the capitalist class than those of the masses, among other things, is causing people to look more critically towards capitalism. Younger people, the first generation in the US that cannot expect to do better than their parents economically, are becoming more sympathetic to a socialist alternative. In their new book Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography, Noah Van Sciver, Paul Buhle, and Steve Max remind us of a time in history when the socialist movement first became a force on the U.S. political scene.

Born to immigrants of Alsatian origin in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1855, young Debs was named for two French novelists: Eugene Sue & Victor Hugo. Contrary to the stereotypes prevalent in contemporary culture, it is clear that the socialist movement of the late 19^th& early 20^thcentury had its roots deep in the soil of the American Midwest. The authors point out that John Chapman, known as “Johnny Appleseed,” had died in the nearby town of Fort Worth only a decade previous to Eugene’s birth. Debs’ Socialism grew directly out of the conditions faced by the Midwestern workers of the time. Indeed young Eugene would decide to quit school in order to help support his struggling family by getting a job as a painter with the Vandalia railroad line. In 1873, during what was the worst depression to hit the US, Debs was fired from his job. He then went to St. Louis, which in 1877 was the center of a general strike against the railroads, one that was crushed by federal troops.

Returning to Terre Haute, Debs was able to find work on the railroad again. He promptly joined a union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman, where he quickly became the grand secretary and editor of the Locomotive Fireman’s Magazine. At this time a growing sympathy for radical ideals began to emerge. The authors mention his personal acquaintance with figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Robert G. Ingersoll, the “great free thinker of America.” In 1884 Debs served a single term in the Indiana General Assembly as a Democratic state representative. Here he began to recognize the limitations of attempting to work within the Democratic Party, a dilemma that many American Socialists would have to grapple with over the next century or so.

Deciding to concentrate on his union activities, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen soon doubled its membership to 5,000. The authors point out that Debs worked to overcome class, regional and religious divisions amongst railroad workers. Marrying Katherine Menzel in 1885 Debs and his wife embarked on “an expensive honeymoon that leaves them broke” on their return home. Kate Debs would always complain about the way he would give away his money to unemployed railway workers. With such a generous spirit, it is no wonder that he would later come to read Edward Bellamy’s classic Looking Backwards, that depicted a 21^st century socialist United States.

After a number of failed strikes Debs came to realize that this was due to the failure of railroad craft unions to support each other’s actions. Thus in 1893 the American Railway Union was founded to unite the separate craft unions, and Debs became its first president. This led to a successful strike against the Great Northern Line, but in 1894 Debs was sent to jail for six months for advocating a general strike against the Pullman company. In jail he read Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, and became a socialist. In I895 he became the leader of the new Social Democratic Party of America and in 1900 was its presidential candidate.

In 1901 the Social Democratic Party and former members of the Socialist Labor Party merged to form the Socialist Party of America. Debs was the presidential candidate in 1904 and again in 1908. In between these campaigns he was one of the founders, along with the Western Federation of Miners leader Big Bill Haywood, of the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1912 he again ran for president, winning more than 901,000 votes at a time when the Socialist Party of America was at its greatest strength of 118, 000 members. 

The fortunes of the Socialist Party, and of Debs himself, changed after the entry of the US into the First World War. Unlike socialist parties in Europe, American socialists were more determined to oppose an clearly imperialist war. In April of 1917 the party pledged “unalterable, continuous, active, and public opposition to the war and conscription” at a meeting in St. Louis. Debs had been unwell and did not attend that meeting, but was in full support of the St. Louis platform. When he stated his opposition to the war in a speech in Canton, Ohio he was arrested and sent to prison for violating the Sedition and Espionage acts. His final presidential campaign in 1920 was run while he was in prison. He received nearly 1,000,000 votes, the high point for socialist electoral politics in the US. 

The final section of Eugene V. Debs: a Graphic Biographyis devoted to tracing the fortunes of Debs’ Socialist Party and the tradition that attempted to carry on his legacy. After the Bolshevik Revolution many socialists flocked to the fledgling communist movement, inspired by the success of the revolution in Russia. This sapped the strength of the Socialist Party of America. Debs’ mantle was taken over by Norman Thomas, who would come to be known as ‘Mr. Socialism’ to a US audience. The party would never regain its former strength. After the Second World War many socialists compromised themselves by throwing aside their opposition to imperialism, and supporting the Cold War era foreign policy of the US government. Some, such as Democratic Socialists of America leader Michael Harrington, would belatedly come to oppose the Vietnam War, but only after years of antagonizing younger members of the burgeoning New Left.

Eugene V. Debs: a Graphic Biography is an easily read and informative ‘beginners guide’ to the history of Debs, his party and the tradition associated with him. As Americans, particularly younger people, begin to look with greater favor on socialist politics this book is quite welcome. It is however a largely nostalgic look at a time past that is unlikely to be repeated. Debs remains an inspiring figure for his commitment to the struggle against capitalism and imperialism, but the tradition of Democratic Socialism that claims his legacy is today mostly involved in attempting to push the Democratic Party leftwards. While I wish them luck in doing so, it is hard to escape the apprehension that it is unlikely that a party that is essentially a tool of corporate capitalism can be remade as a vehicle for socialism. I think it highly likely that over the next decade many of the new Democratic Socialists will come to realize that it will be necessary to break with the Democrats and form a new party, much as the Republican Party originated in a break with the Whigs in the 19^thcentury. If that were to happen, then we could truly say that the revolutionary legacy of Eugene Victor Debs is alive and well.

Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography

Art by Noah Van Scriber; Script by Paul Buhle and Steve Max with Dave Nance

ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-687-4

Verso Books, London, 2019

128 pages

$19.95

Richard Burke is an activist, artist, writer, and retired teacher living in St. Louis.

Intuitively, it is a stretch to assert that a social system with a wide range of goals of which the development of the productive forces is only one, will surpass a society consumed by the singularity of that goal. The incentive-egalitarian balance highlights that trade-off. And if we accept that the path to socialism will involve sacrifices and choices all along the way, including in its construction, then winning people to the socialist cause and keeping them there will have to be based on their desire for something different rather than the questionable promise of socialism bringing not only more justice, more democracy, more workplace control, but also more growth.

We need to see the limitations of social democracy. It is designed to preserve and contain capitalism, not to confront it.

In this interview, Wolff discusses how the revolutions that overthrew feudalism laid the foundations for our current crisis of capitalism, why historical models of socialism put into practice failed, and what lessons we can learn from them in creating a new socialism.

In 1985 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published their ground breaking work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Coming at the beginning of the era of neoliberalism’s political and economic hegemony, the pair argued for a radical re-visioning of traditional left politics. This book attempted to integrate the politics of democratic socialism with insights derived from anti-colonial struggles, post-structuralism, and the new social movements addressing racism, sexism, gay rights and environmental issues. The key to this rethinking of left politics was the work of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, in particular his concept of hegemony, analyzing the way in which a specific social group comes to hold and exercise political power because its interests are seen to coincide with the interests of the larger society. In particular Gramsci was concerned to explain how it was that a distinct minority-the capitalist ruling class-came to be supported by other classes rather than being overthrown by the numerically larger working class. 33 years later Chantal Mouffe restates and updates these ideas in her latest work For a Left Populism.

Mouffe’s For a Left Populism is a slim easy to read volume, a manifesto that presents the core ideas of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy without much of the academic language which can make that book a somewhat challenging read. Mouffe argues that the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath have thrown the neoliberal hegemony of the last 40 years into question. This has resulted in a ‘populist moment’ in which forces on both the right and left have thrown the “post-political” consensus of neoliberalism into crisis. By “post-political” she refers to the way in which traditional political parties on both the right and left have accepted the neoliberal model, espousing free markets, free trade, deregulation, privatization and austerity. A challenge to this consensus having been ruled out politics has been reduced to the technocratic management of neoliberal policies. This is “what Gramsci calls an interregnum: a period of crisis during which several tenets of the consensus around a hegemonic project are challenged. A solution to the crisis is not in sight and this characterizes the ‘populist moment’ in which we find ourselves today.”

Mouffe argues that the political success of the world-left lies in the acceptance of this situation and the adoption of a populist political strategy. Her approach challenges many of the cherished dogmas of the left. Key to this are two theoretical innovations: “an anti-essentialist approach,” and an “agonistic conception of democracy.”

By an anti-essentialist approach Mouffe mean conceptions of political identities as pre-established. In particular she takes aim at orthodox Marxist dogmas that attribute pre-existing political positions to social classes. Such dogmas assert that membership in a specific class; the working class for example, necessarily implies a specific political orientation such as socialism. Mouffe argues that political identities are socially constructed by political discourses that attempt to create a “chain of equivalences” between diverse identities and issues. She also opposes any attempt that would reduce a socialist politics to an emphasis on class issues at the expense of concerns over issues such as racism, sexism, or the environment.

This of course has led to the inevitable caricaturing of the work of Laclau and Mouffe as somehow ignoring or eschewing class issues in favor of those of ‘the new social movements.’ Far from doing so Mouffe argues that what instead is necessary is the construction of a chain of equivalences between different forms of oppression. Thus class oppression is made equivalent to racial or gender oppression in a movement that opposes all forms of oppression. Indeed she points out that at the time Hegemony and Socialist Strategy had been written much of the left still prioritized class struggles over anti-racist or anti-sexist struggles. Today many people say that the opposite situation holds, with class oppressions being ignored and concerns over racism, sexism or gay rights being emphasized. Much of the Keynesian and social-democratic advances of the post World War 2 era have been unraveled. The proper approach is one that links social appropriation of the means of production with opposition to other forms of oppression.

The other key theoretical approach, an agonistic conception of democracy, is one that accepts conflict as a permanent feature of political life. This rejects an antagonistic approach that perceives political antagonists as enemies to be destroyed, as well as an emphasis on consensus building that attempts to deny competing interests in favor of a technocratic management by centrists. An agonistic conception recognizes instead the permanence of adversarial relations within the rules of liberal democracy. Like Ralph Milliband, Mouffe argues that the institutions of liberal democracy allow a space for a radical, democratic socialist politics to advance. Indeed she argues that there is a permanent and ongoing conflict between liberalism; with its emphasis on the rule of law, separation of powers and individual freedoms, and democracy; which emphasizes popular sovereignty and equality. An agonistic conception of democracy rejects any conception of a society where all conflicts have been harmonized or suppressed, as well as anarchistic doctrines that attempt to do away with or remain uninvolved with the state. For Mouffe the state is a site of struggle in which political adversaries conflict.

Like her partner Laclau, Mouffe sees a populist strategy as one that attempts to establish an “internal frontier” between the people and the oligarchy. What distinguishes a left populism from right-wing variants is precisely its emphasis on a radical democracy, one that attempts an extension of democracy throughout all areas of society, including the economy. This is opposed to a right-wing populism that claims to oppose the elites in the name of the people, but which does so with a restricted concept of the people and does not advance democracy, but authoritarianism instead. Like Laclau she points to the People’s Party of the late 19^th century US, from which the term ‘populism’ is derived, as an example of left populism.

One area where For A Left Populism differs from Hegemony and Socialist Strategy is in its recognition of the importance of environmental issues. “It is impossible to envisage a project of radicalization of democracy in which the ‘ecological question’ is not at the centre of the agenda. It is therefore essential to combine this with the social question. No doubt this will require profound changes in our way of life and multifarious resistances will have to be overcome. To abandon the productivist model and to implement the necessary ecological transition will require a truly Gramscian ‘intellectual and moral reform.’ This will certainly not be easy, but an ambitious and well-designed ecological project could offer an attractive vision of a future democratic society that might entice some sectors that are currently within the neoliberal hegemonic bloc.”

For A Left Populism is a timely work, one that is quite relevant to today’s political scene. This reviewer read Hegemony and Socialist Strategy back in 2000, just before the presidential elections. Then it seemed that Laclau and Mouffe had raised some interesting issues, but that their overall approach left the reader uncertain. In the 18 years since the relevance of their work only seems to grow in stature, to the point that it seems to be the only way forward for the world-left. Chantal Mouffe’s For A Left Populism is a definite must-read!

For A Left Populism

By Chantal Mouffe

ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-755-0

Verso Books, London, 2018

98 pages

$17.95

“Populism” is a magical word. Its mysterious power unites the Erdogan and Putin governments, Latin American leftists like Evo Morales and the late Hugo Chavez, the resurgent Right in Europe and the United States, Hungarian and Polish anti-communist parties, Podemos, the Eurocommunism of the tragic Syriza, the revitalizers of social democracy Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn – all under the same umbrella.

Almost everyone now uses this word in an unthinking way but “populism” is not an innocent characterization. The term has political implications. It gives the discredited “mainstream” politicians of the world, their reputations tarnished by their very real subservience to powerful economic interests, a common fighting cause. What’s more, the continual use of the word is a give-away to the ascendant Right-wing.

When initially described as “populist”, the French  National Front at first rejected the term, but after being labeled as such again and again, the FN embraced the term. In effect, writes Anton Jager, “they [commentators] transformed the FN from a fascist party into a populist one.”

The concept’s life purpose is an ignoble one. “Populism” has become a useful shroud for political opportunists. Every player gains from its obscurations except the Left. The so-called “center” can present itself as a necessary bulwark against the Right, while the Right itself can cloak its pathological character in either the righteousness of championing “the people” or the rebelliousness of opposing “the establishment”.

In this division between “populists” and “anti-populists”, the Left is the losing party. When the Right seems on the edge of taking power, leftists are instructed to lend their support to the Clintons of the world. When a socialist party gains some success, however, it is immediately lumped together with xenophobes and chauvinists as “populist”. The very Left-Right antagonism is frequently denied any relevance at all. Instead we hear continually about dichotomies of “pluralism” and “anti-pluralism”, “openness” and “closedness”, “globalism” and “parochialism”.

In an essay for the Guardian, John B. Judis gives a typical precis of “populism”. “Populism” has both a left-wing and a right-wing variant. The former, represented today by Bernie Sanders and Podemos, organizes the “bottom” and the “middle” of society against the “top”, while the latter, represented by Trump and Le Pen, opposes both the “top” and “bottom” from the middle.

Judis treats Left and Right as simply window dressing for the underlying “populism”. This has some superficial truth to it, yet it seems to me to quite a leap to say both are expressions of the same phenomenon. The character of “populists” on the Left and the Right differ fundamentally. They play completely different roles. They relate to the rest of society in different ways. We need go beyond their apparent similarities and grasp what they really stand for.

The Original Populists

The American People’s Party, which is often referred to by the proper noun Populism, is central to Judis’ conception of “populism”. He claims that Populism was the “example [which] would establish the basis for “populism” in the United States and Europe.” George Wallace, his other main historical example, merely “created a new rightwing variety of populism”. This is quite suspect. To see Wallace as simply another version of Populism in rightist disguise because both appealed to the “people” against the “elite” suggests a profound error.

In late 19^th century, the American farmer was confronted by the squeeze of the crop-lien system, the rate gauging of railway companies, and a fall in agricultural prices. The old way of life, the familiar rhythms of agrarian culture, the communal bonds holding self-sufficient yeoman together was eroded by an urban, industrial, capitalist civilization. The farmer’s social existence was threatened. With the collapse of their livelihood came the collapse of their entire moral universe.

In the South, the failure of Reconstruction opened the door for Southern conservatives whose grip on Southern society rests on their control of the Democratic Party. These elites ruled over a great mass of poor farmers, whites and freed blacks, tenants and small landowners. In this part of the country, the contradictions of agrarian life were the most acute.

Populism was born of these contradictions. The Farmers Alliance, a mass movement of insurgent farmers, organized cooperatives aimed at the indirect expropriation of the middleman. Farmers united against their impoverishment which was the same as the destruction of their entire way of life. The natural extension of this movement was the birth of the People’s Party.

Populism expressed the antagonism between farmers and the course of social development. It reflected the farmers own contradictory historical position. Nostalgia for pre-capitalist social relations, the allure of prosperity from commercial farming, and the radical potential of the masses define the personality of agrarian movements.

In Populism, progressive demands were cloaked in the language of Jeffersonian restoration, drawing its collective self-understanding from a vision of a true Republic of small producers. Despite the democratic aspects of this ideology, this vision was infused with many accepted hierarchies of home and community and what’s more obscured the real nature of the struggle.

At the same time, the farmer’s inheritance of tradition, prejudice and backwardness was challenged by an egalitarian impulse at the heart of this mass movement. The Populists were not just repeating the perennial pattern of peasant protest, where violations of their moral economy are opposed, but further transformation is avoided. The Populists demanded a progressive income tax and the nationalization of railways. Nowhere else is this thrust felt more than in the Southern Populists’ efforts to overcome racial division and organize black and white farmers together.

The progressive motive force of Populism was the movement from a defensive position of the traditional yeoman farmer into a class politics that challenged the established social order. This motive force, however, was undermined by Populism’s own contradictions. The farmers positioned themselves against outside forces: merchants, financiers, the urban bourgeoisie. Within their own ranks, however, conservative elements steadily ate away at the radical drive. This conservatism did not merely rely on the resilience of tradition but was infused with the vitality of the adolescent capitalist economy.

The farmer’s unity only existed politically. Structurally, the base of the Populist movement was divided between small landowners and prosperous farmers, and poor tenants. The former, geographically represented by Populism’s Midwestern wing, steadily gained control of the party. The farmer’s movement becomes a catalyst for integrating farmers into bourgeois society as just another economic interest fighting for its share of the spoils under the slogan “free silver”.

The Populists joined with the silver Democrats, while the fragile shoots of racial unity in its Southern wing were crushed under the heel of the threatened Southern elite. White supremacy is thoroughly codified in Jim Crow. The South’s power structure is erected on the grave of the Populist promise.

This brief, schematic history of populism illustrates its basic essence: a movement of the masses, with emancipatory potential, undermined internally and externally by the spirit of the times. Can we make the same judgment about Wallace and his supporters?

Was George Wallace a Populist? 

To answer this question, the starting point should be the crucial difference between Populism and what Wallace represented. Populism was rooted in a mass movement of class self-defense that for a moment threatened the existing power structure. Wallace, on the other hand, was a figure who embodied in a visceral manner, the pathologies of American life.

Before 1968, George Wallace was just a defender of the threatened Southern order, an enabler of racist violence, and an opponent of the civil rights movement. In this role, he is a pure reactionary, the fiery representative of a legally codified system of racial oppression. It is in the guise he assumes during his 1968 and future presidential campaigns that in the eyes of some earns him the label “populist”.

Wallace skillfully exploited the terrain of American politics. The New Deal, the mass unionization campaigns of the CIO, the mobilization of the Second World War, and the GI Bill resulted in a tremendous improvement in the lives of millions. The reforms of the 30s and 40s, however, were accompanied by the persistence of conservative tendencies: racism, anti-communism, and militarism. McCarthyism marginalized the Left and Taft-Hartley and the bureaucratization of the labor movement put a stop to further mass unionization efforts.

The New Deal order left behind most blacks and a mass of unorganized workers. A sharp division existed in American society between those who experienced social mobility and improvement, and those who were still excluded from the post-war promise. This fostered an illusion that rather than a conquest by the working class and a base for further struggles, the gains won in the Roosevelt era were a fulfillment of a new higher social position, the “middle class”. This feeling was buttressed by racial and ethnic identity. The sudden inclusion and social advancement of blacks via civil rights legislation and affirmative action as well as gains by the multiracial “Other America” via War on Poverty programs was interpreted by the already existing beneficiaries of American public policy as a threat.

This division provided Wallace his base. To call his supporters “white working class” is somewhat misleading. His appeal extended beyond just workers; and even though plenty of wage laborers, a substantial number of whom were union members, supported Wallace, he was not appealing to them as a working class. Wallace’s politics was built on a denial of class identity. Instead, he appealed to the illusion of “middle America”.

The “middle-ness” Wallace tried to harness is not a place in society, but a social practice. To understand the nature of this practice, we need to break with the American liberal idyll of the “middle class”. In this nice vision of security and relative prosperity, the opposition to welfare or support for “law and order” appear as the random frustrations of the average Joe. When one considers, however, a collective emotion like that of the “white backlash”, one needs to uncover its source in the core workings of capitalist economy and society.

The Roots of White Backlash 

Pre-capitalist, feudal agrarian systems are held together by traditional, communal, and hierarchal bonds which fix an individual’s place in society. The passage to modernity breaks these bonds. The strict boundaries of rank and estate are replaced with a ceaseless society-wide war of all against all for resources, power, and positions.  Alongside this Darwinian contest there exists the stability of a definite class structure. Individuals occupy structural roles: capitalists, workers, various other strata. The capitalist experience is simultaneous the experiences of different classes and a common experience of actors in a competition where everyone feels ripped off in one way or another.

The political consequences of this dual experience can be progressive. Without traditional obscurations, society can appear as it is, a system of naked exploitation. The obliteration of sentimentalities such as the ideal of a caring master or of a dutiful servant means social relations have a more transparent character, facilitating the organization of workers as a class.

But capitalism can also take advantage of its egalitarian aspects. If the charm of feudal hierarchy was like an opiate where serfs could find some bliss in their immobility, bourgeois society intoxicates its members with the possibility of wealth and power. Bourgeois freedom and equality does not just break the bonds of the ancien regime. They democratize the masterdom once reserved for the aristocracy, giving everyone the potential to gain some relative material benefit, exercise some relative domination, and feel some relative superiority over others. Capitalism’s perverse equality is what lay behind “middle America”.

When members of different social classes unite around racial identity to gain a relative advantage over others, they are only intensifying the intoxication. The tendency by some to treat race and class as two separate universes misses this. Both are expressions of capitalist social relations. Class struggle is a pure, demystified, expression of those relations which is why it makes sense to speak of the “primacy” of class. The organization of workers as a class is the first step towards freedom from capitalist drives. Racism does the opposite. It feeds off bourgeois society’s irrationality giving it a more targeted and more terrible form.

The collectivism of the “white backlash” does not require any greater solidarity than that which exists in the everyday experience of life under capitalism. It is a union of extremely narrow, immediate, and destructive self-interests, capable only of triumphing over the socially marginalized. When the ­­Wallace supporter became the Reagan Democrat, the union members among them got what they wanted against the deadbeats and welfare mothers, but in the process they surrendered true solidarity. They were powerless against Reagan’s anti-labor onslaught. “Right-wing populism” always ends in the betrayal of its popular constituencies. This betrayal is nothing more than the logical conclusion of a politics which emphasizes indifference to deprivation and oppression: the real masters find it easier to deprive and oppress everyone.

“Right-Wing Populism” = Organized Chauvinism Not Populism 

“Populism” is a very inappropriate term to describe the politics of the Right. Its popular character is a façade masking an acquisitive struggle for dominance. For “left-wing populism”, or simply genuine Populism, the “people” are more than just a random majority.  They are united by their downtrodden character. Their common situation of subordination provides Populism its rationale: to end their oppression. Alongside condemnation of exploitation, Populism idealizes the virtues of the common people as the basis for a new egalitarian, moral society.

“Right-wing populism” also idealizes the morals of its “people”, but these morals lose their universal character. They are held as proof of innate superiority, a justification for others’ inferiority and exclusion. In this regard, “right-wing populism” is nothing more than the small man’s aristocratism. Its condemnation of “elites” is empty since its “people” begin to resemble the image of a cruel and detached elite. “Populism” is reduced in right-wing rhetoric to its most superficial features. The “people” lose the solidarity, equality, and morality which genuine Populism invests in them. Instead, they are vessels for a politics whose ends are opposed to those values. This is not to say that Populist movements do not have reactionary features. There is, however, a world of difference between a politics where prejudice is backwardness with a potential to be overcome and a politics where prejudice itself is a motive force.

If Populism must be differentiated from its imitators, it should not be simplistically idealized. Populism has a moralistic character which tries to awaken the pre-existing egalitarianism of the “people”.  While it can have tremendous power, morality is often not enough to forge a durable politics which can construct a better social order. Marxism is an advance on naïve Populism since it emphasizes the importance of understanding bourgeois society’s social relations and the classes which inhabit it. For Marxism, society is not static but dynamic and continually changing, driven by contradiction and conflict. Marxism substitutes the working class for the romanticized “people”, not because workers are all noble from the outset but because through organized struggle workers form a conscious, collective solidarity that can act as the basis for reconstructing society.

These criticisms aside, genuine Populism cannot be lumped together with organized chauvinism. Distinguishing between the two is essential. To remain on a level where Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump can both be described as “populist” is along the lines of saying a person is experiencing emotion without specifying whether they are feeling love or hatred.

Cyryl Ryzak is a member of Solidarity living in Portland, Oregon.