🧵 A Dialectical Materialist's Guide to Social Change: A Thread 🧵
Any time I talk about secondary contradictions of class society - land back/indigenous liberation, dismantling patriarchy, trans rights, dismantling whiteness, etc. - I hear the same objections.
Let's discuss.
Any time I talk about secondary contradictions of class society - land back/indigenous liberation, dismantling patriarchy, trans rights, dismantling whiteness, etc. - I hear the same objections.
Let's discuss.
1. "These are all distractions! You are dividing the working class! Ignore this idpol and focus on CLASS!"
This is a gross misunderstanding of the dialectical materialist worldview. All things, phenomena, and ideas are defined by INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS.
This is a gross misunderstanding of the dialectical materialist worldview. All things, phenomena, and ideas are defined by INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS.
The working class is not a static, monolithic entity. It is composed of objective social relations between real people. There exist secondary contradictions (many created and exacerbated intentionally by capitalism) which need to be negated.
In Vietnam, we have internal contradictions like division of ethnic groups, patriarchy, etc. Ho Chi Minh wrote and worked extensively to negate these contradictions. He helped build dual power structures like our women's union and spent a lot of time with ethnic minorities.
Uncle Ho didn't do these things for "optics," he saw how the fascists in the Southern puppet government were using reactionary social forces of patriarchy to build false consciousness (similar to the Nazi "family values" monism), and saw the French and USA stoke ethnic division.
Lenin also saw secondary contradictions such as the peasant/industrial worker divide. One of Lenin's chief concerns was negating this massive contradiction to build a united proletariat.
We can't negate these internal contradictions by ignoring them. Secondary contradictions will manifest differently in different places but as long as they fester the working class can't be united.
Thus, contradictions like racism and colonialism aren't distractions, they're the internal social relations which define the working class. Ho Chi Minh tried so hard to get French workers to have solidarity with Vietnamese. The French largely ignored him, to their own detriment.
2. "HOW are you going to dismantle racism/achieve land back/liberate women/etc.? It's just a vague ideal, what are the concrete steps!"
This is a misunderstanding of dialectical processes. It's like asking "how do you build communism?"
ALL of these have dialectical continuity.
This is a misunderstanding of dialectical processes. It's like asking "how do you build communism?"
ALL of these have dialectical continuity.
Take whiteness for example. Whiteness developed dialectically with colonialism and capitalism. They didn't sprout up independently. They arose and grew and strengthened through MUTUAL IMPACT.
They still have a dialectical relationship today. Whiteness reinforces capitalism just as capitalism reinforces whiteness. They feed and strengthen and mutually develop one another.
Dismantling them will be a similar dialectical process. Attacking one will weaken the other.
Dismantling them will be a similar dialectical process. Attacking one will weaken the other.
So if someone asks "how will you achieve indigenous liberation?" a big part of the answer s "by weakening capitalism." Just as fighting for indigenous liberation is key to dismantling capitalism.
These social forces aren't mutually exclusive, they are deeply intertwined.
These social forces aren't mutually exclusive, they are deeply intertwined.
3. "Ok but HOW do we CONCRETELY negate these dialectically-related contradictions?"
The answer to that question will vary wildly from one time/place to another. This is why YOU as a revolutionist must learn HOW to think and act.
A woman in Vietnam can't tell you WHAT TO DO.
The answer to that question will vary wildly from one time/place to another. This is why YOU as a revolutionist must learn HOW to think and act.
A woman in Vietnam can't tell you WHAT TO DO.
You have to learn to examine the material conditions where you are. Know where you are, know where you want to go, then figure out how to get there through PRACTICE.
But remember that conditions constantly develop. Stop and reassess CONSTANTLY.
But remember that conditions constantly develop. Stop and reassess CONSTANTLY.
Whiteness and capitalism today is slightly different from what it will look like tomorrow. Practice and observation and systematic thinking are vital, here.
This is why we say "listen to the oppressed." You need to understand the dialectical processes of oppression.
This is why we say "listen to the oppressed." You need to understand the dialectical processes of oppression.
If you listen to trans/indigenous/black people and other marginalized groups then you will better understand our mutual impacts, the ways in which these internal contradictions relate to each other. A REAL victory for trans people is a blow against capitalism.
I say REAL victory because both liberals and fascists love to recuperate and weaponize these struggles to further their own ends. "More black female prison guards," for example, is not a victory for black women, it's a victory for the bourgeois state.
Imagining that we can simply will these secondary contradictions away is idealist utopianism. It is a form of monism that imagines the working class as something it is not, and that we can overcome objective social contradictions simply by pretending they don't exist.
I am working on a book translation right now of our Vietnamese curriculum on dialectical materialism that explains all these concepts in more detail and it will be available for free soon, so follow me if you want to know when it's finished!
Update: here is a dialectical materialist response to objections to "Land Back."
https://mobile.twitter.com/LunaOi_VN/status/1443669313009815600
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