On Red Sails

As is clear from the index, links, and site design, RedSails has been a major source of inspiration. The work done by Roderic Day and Nia Frome has helped shape my understanding of what modern communists should be doing, and their work has inspired me to forge my own site in a similar vein.

First and foremost, I'd like to express a quick shoutout to Roderic+Nia for the guidance and help. Thanks a bunch! Keep up the good work.

Influential works

Roderic and Nia both do a great job writing (and curating!) articles for RedSails. The works done by the team can be found using the @crew subdirectory, or individually under @roderic and @nia.

Technology

Roderic, as a fellow engineer who works in software, really got my attention early on because his perspective resonated with my own. This is especially clear in his @tech articles. The Virtual Factory (02/2021) came out right around when I found RedSails, and it's one of my favorites (helped shape my own thoughts on technology). Cults and Miracles (2018) and On Crypto (2021) are both concise and well worth reading to understand the progression of the tech industry through the modern era.

China (and AES [Actually Existing Socialism])

Roderic and Nia were both influential towards my thoughts on China. I think that started with their tweets and that was a long time ago now, so it's hard to paint the full picture.

That said, I distinctly remember Nia's article China Good (2020) off her medium (@NiaFrome). I'm just gonna quote it:

Okay, let’s say that communism is a classless, stateless society, with no money, where production and distribution are organized by the directly associated producers, the whole shebang. It’s not very good at economic growth because production is on the basis of need, and responsive to people’s wishes, which means we’re probably not going to see a lot of 90-hour work weeks.

Capitalism, on the other hand, is quite good at economic growth, since that’s its raison d’être. Of course it does run up against problems like underconsumption/overproduction, negative externalities, a huge waste of human potential and so on, but it is very good at accumulating wealth, since that’s what it’s all about. It’s a machine for grinding up people’s lives to create wealth.

What about socialism? Socialism is the transitional state between capitalism and communism. There are people who will have no truck with talk of a transitional state, which I think is stupid — what do they expect, for it to happen overnight? Marx was quite clear that it would take a while to reach communism. What can we say about socialism? Well, it’s a transitional state, so it will by definition have characteristics of both capitalism and communism. Which ones, and in which order will they switch out? We can’t know. The thing is, nobody has ever reached world communism, so nobody knows in what order socialism needs to abolish all the moving pieces of capitalism, or on what time frame, to achieve its purpose. It does no good to list all the lovely qualities we attribute to communism and say they must hold for a thing to be socialist, because the point of giving the transitional state its own name is to indicate that things are going to be contradictory, in flux, somewhat capitalist. We can’t even know whether socialism should be good at economic growth!

There’s a problem faced by all countries that want to abolish capitalism and also face the misfortune of being poor: they need to catch up, to grow economically, or else they will be utterly at the mercy of existing capitalist powers. But communism is not suited to economic growth. You can’t devolve production decisions to the direct association of producers because they won’t produce enough to keep the country safe from invasion and expropriation — this is more or less the problem the Bolsheviks faced with the Kronstadt rebellion. To grow means they have to make some sort of accommodation with capitalism, that bad mode of production they’re trying to leave behind: either state capitalism (turning the whole economy into one firm, replacing market mechanisms with naked command) or market socialism.

The USSR went with the first route. What’s more, it exported revolution (it’s not important whether you agree with this; it’s inarguable that, relative to China’s foreign policy, the USSR was more aggressively progressive). Because it went so far down the road of abolishing market mechanisms, it had to rely on a great deal of naked coercion in order to achieve economic growth (the market usefully conceals coercion — if you want to replace it, you basically have to take full responsibility). Forced industrialization and forced collectivization are examples. This made it unpopular, which generated a divide in Soviet culture between the state and the masses. At the same time it was pissing off its people, it was pissing off the capitalist powers by pursuing an interventionist policy abroad. Thus its economy was warped in favor of heavy industry and military expenditures at the expense of consumer goods, which made it brittle and susceptible to a palace coup. Khrushchev tried to fix some of this by disavowing the state violence of Stalinism and reorienting towards a consumer society and peaceful coexistence with the West, but this just meant that there would no longer be any kind of ideological guard against embracing Western values tout court, which led the Soviet people to compare their own (much more communist and therefore less rich) society unfavorably with the West.

Dengism solves both problems at a single stroke: it invites rich countries to invest in China, which gives those countries no interest in regime changing it. To get them to come over it had to shred the social safety net, yes, because that’s sine qua non for capitalist accumulation to get off the ground, and it’s precisely capitalist accumulation that they wanted to harness. This means China doesn’t have to invest disproportionately in military stuff and instead can focus on raising standards of living, generating growth while also reducing poverty. It always pains me to see people scoff at poverty reduction. It is hugely important to democracy, participation, communism, whatever your idea of human flourishing is. China also hasn’t pursued a very progressive foreign policy, which achieves much the same thing. The wisdom of Dengism is seen in op-eds wherein Western commentators say “Don’t attack China, we have interests there!” and in the stunning approval rating of the Chinese people for their government (much greater public support, consensus, than the Bolsheviks ever saw). This can be partly explained by the fact that China has offloaded responsibility for economic compulsion onto capitalism, something the Soviets could never do. A well-educated and well-fed populace is the single greatest force of production there is, and 88% of those people support socialism.

What determines whether a country is socialist is not whether it’s communist, whether it has effectively abolished private property, or whether it has gotten rid of all its billionaires. The important question is the class character of the state and the direction it’s heading. We can say even more: if there is a democratic entity that is sovereign over market forces, then it’s well on its way to abolishing capitalism, since the capitalist mode of production is defined by the sovereignty of market forces in production.

Nia, like any good Marxist-Leninist, does a good job of analyzing growth within the relevant contexts (ie. the ones that exist within our material nature). She helped me view China's growth through the most fitting lenses.

Roderic's essay China Has Billionaires (2021) also helped me understand China's socialist transition.

Roderic's The Xinjiang Atrocity Propaganda Blitz (2021) helps understand Western media's bias and streak while reporting on China. Though not about China, Michael Parenti's Anticommunism & Wonderland (1997) [an excerpt from his book, Blackshirts & Reds] is another great read in that vein.

Feminism

As I address in my posts On Feminism and On Trans Rights, the authors present on RedSails have heavily influenced my views on these topics.

The Woman Question (2016) by Lori Watson is one of my favorite pieces dealing with questions pertinent to the lives of trans women. Sobrina de Alguien's Men value my opinion (2020) was also a thought provoking piece that helped shape my thoughts and actions moving forward.

RedSails also provides good introductions to Alexandra Kollontai, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Jo Freeman, and some other lesser-known but very compelling feminists

The State

My understanding of the state has been greatly influenced by Lenin, and I highly recommend you read some of his thoughts as well when you're trying to understand the state. State and Revolution is a great intro to this discussion.

After Lenin, Che has also influenced my view greatly. Especially with regards to technology, and moving forward into authors like Yasha Levine and Shoshana Zuboff in the modern day.

Nia's work has been very influential here as well. Her recent piece On the Abolition/Preservation of the State is very good as a short place to start. Don't get scared by all the unknown philosophers; I still get a little intimidated too, but I remember Uncle Ho's words in The Path Which Led Me To Leninism (1960):

There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me! I was overjoyed to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted out aloud as if addressing large crowds: 'Dear martyrs compatriots! This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!'

Dialectics

Here, I'd say Mao is probably my most influential, with On Contradiction and On Practice and various other quotations. But Engels, Marx, Lenin, Roderic Day, vihart, and my background in math all contributed greatly as well.

Analysis of change is a natural human process, we're all familiar with dialectics. Figuring out the terminology used by these authors just helps understand the motion better, it helps us learn from their experiences.

Nia's work is my favorite here: On Dialectics, or How to Defeat Enemies. I mean it's linked in my "why did I name the site Air and Steel" post.

In a quantitative then qualitative fashion, your understanding will gain shape (ie. definition) as you tackle more of these works. And like any good work, it's rewarding seeing your abilities grow. Good results require serious engineering, that means organization and learning.

Linguistics

On the topics of dialectics and the state, all the new terms I learn and then try to teach people. Well, linguistics is involved here.

Nia's On Jargon is a quick 4 paragraphs and explains well why the terminology has come into existence:

Marxist jargon is jargony because it’s rigorous, rigorous because it’s debated, and debated because it’s democratic[...] Marxist jargon is polished by use, not preserved under glass. It’s brought out to facilitate communication, increase bandwidth[...] The point is efficiency.

She also speaks well to why we can't ditch the labels or terminology in Marketing Socialism (2019).

Frantz Fanon speaks well to language in a colonial context in Black Skin, White Masks. Stalin gives some good insight in Marxism and Problems of Linguistics (1950). Gretchen McCulloch provides a scientific view into modern changes in linguistics related to the advent of internet communications in Because Internet (2019).

Media

Roderic and Nia have both shaped my own thoughts on media. They may actually be my largest modern influences, although Michael Parenti's Inventing Reality did a great deal to loosen the pickle jar.

Nia's The Swerve (2021) and Two Cthulhus (2021) are both hard to describe. It's the type of reading that blows your hair back, the type of reading you don't realize exists until your head can process the words and you realize what's being said.

Roderic's “Brainwashing” (2021) lives in similar pockets of my brain, having fundamentally changed my views on information propagation.

And recently, I found John Kessel's Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention, and Morality (2004) very compelling in the Art and Propaganda section.

Marxism-Leninism

I suppose back when I came upon RedSails, I'm not sure I yet self-identified as a Marxist-Leninist. I document some of my journey in the philosophy section of the site, especially in Part III. I was still rapidly getting caught up on history, philosophy, nature, change, what all the new ideological labels meant (especially re: how they varied in practice).

Nia's "Tankies" (2020) did well here helping me understand some of the pejoritives slung around on twitter. As did Mao: To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing (1939).

Anti-Imperialism

Here again, there are a lot of fundamental authors. Lots of people suffering under ruthless imperialism, lots of whom shout their voices beautifully clear against the enemy.

Roderic's Self-interested Anti-imperialism (2022) does a good job fighting against opportunism within the imperial core.

The RedSails sections on Latin America has some great material here

Fascism and Colonialism

These are terms that are a bit difficult to tackle, especially because they're hard to define concepts that shape with time (I'll admit, I too am the type of guy who would prefer a simple checklist test to determine everything. But there's great nuance when dealing with topics as serious as these). The Fascism and Colonialism is dedicated to looking at how these ideologies and movements crystallize in our material world.

Check out Roderic's Really Existing Fascism (2021) to see him draw some great parallels between the various societal projects pursuing socialism and those pursuing fascism.

Black Liberation

RedSails has linked to some great authors on the topic of Black Liberation. Huey Newton's In Defense of Self-Defense (1968) is a great modern take on the question "Anarchism or Socialism?" (that link is to Stalin's 1907 piece). Huey's take (in brief, though I recommend reading the full piece):

We should understand there is a difference between the rebellion of the anarchists and the black revolution or liberation of the black colony.

This is a class society; it always has been. This reactionary class society places its limitation on individuals, not just in terms of their occupation, but also regarding self expression, being mobile, and being free to really be creative and do anything they want to do.

The class society prevents this. This is true not only for the mass of the lower or subjugated class. It is also true within the ruling class, the master class. That class also limits the freedom of the individual souls of the people which comprise it.

[...]

Blacks and colored people in America, confined within the caste system, are discriminated against as a whole group of people. It’s not a question of individual freedom as it is for the children of the upper classes. We haven’t reached the point of trying to free ourselves individually because we’re dominated and oppressed as a group of people.

[...]

As far as the blacks are concerned, we are not hung up on attempting to actualize or express our individual souls because we’re oppressed not as individuals but as a whole group of people. Our evolution, or our liberation, is based first on freeing our group, freeing our group to a certain degree. After we gain our liberation, our people will not be free. I can imagine in the future that the blacks will rebel against the organized leadership that the blacks themselves have structured. They will see there will be limitations, limiting their individual selves, and limiting their freedom of expression. But this is only after they become free as a group.

This is what makes our group different from the white anarchists — besides he views his group as already free. Now he’s striving for freedom of his individual self. This is the big difference. We’re not fighting for freedom of our individual selves, we’re fighting for a group freedom. In the future there will probably be a rebellion where blacks will say, “Well, our leadership is limiting our freedom because of the rigid discipline. Now that we’ve gained our freedom, we will strive for our individualistic freedom that has nothing to do with organized group or state.” And the group will be disorganized, and it should be.

But at this point we stress discipline, we stress organization, we do not stress psychedelic drugs and all the other things that have to do with just the individual expansion of the mind. We’re trying to gain true liberation of a group of people, and this makes our struggle somewhat different from the whites.

Now, how is it the same? It’s the same in the fact that both of us are striving for freedom. They will not be free — the white anarchists will not be free — until we are free so that makes our fight their fight, really. The imperialists and the bourgeois bureaucratic capitalistic system would not give them individual freedom while they keep a whole group of people based upon race or color oppressed as a group. How can they expect to get individual freedom when the imperialists oppress whole nations of people? Until we gain liberation as a group, they won’t gain any liberation as individual people. So this makes our fight the same, and we must keep this in perspective and always see the similarities and the differences in it.

There’s a tremendous amount of difference in it, and there’s a due amount of similarity between the two cases. Both are striving for freedom and both are striving for liberation of their people, only one is advanced to a degree higher than the other. The anarchists are advanced a step higher, but only in theory. As far as actuality of conditions, they shouldn’t be advanced higher because they should see the necessity of wiping out the imperialistic structure by organized groups just as we must be organized.

RedSails also provides short pieces that can help you get introduced to the works of other great writers like Walter Rodney, Assata Shakur, W.E.B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, and Kwame Nkrumah.

Sundiata Acoli's A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and Its Place In the Black Liberation Movement (2008) also provides a great look at the Black Panther Party.

The Logic of Stupid Poor People (2013) by Tressie McMillan Cottom is a great modern piece that may provide perspective you haven't encountered before.

For more on this topic, you can check out my article On Black Liberation.

Losurdo

The RedSails folks were my introduction to Domenico Losurdo. Their Losurdo section has a few good introductions to his work.

Putting everything together

This article has rapidly gotten long. It got long easily, there's much praise to be said for the RedSails effort in my opinion.

How do all of these things come together? Why should anyone care? My own history has been tainted by its share of nihilism, I avoided many important topics I deemed "lesser" while pursuing my coveted STEM education. As I admit in my post on North America,

Well. I hated history class growing up.

Roderic tackles that question too, in “Potato Sack” History (2022). He outlines why I started caring.

If the goal is emancipation, there’s no alternative to relentless, impeccable, fact- and trajectory-focused historical education. We all need to become decent students and able teachers of history.

I care about the future of the earth; I care about all the people who suffer under the systems of today. Ergo, here we are. I'm sharpening my understanding of the world (in every relevant arena) so that I can make my best efforts from my vantage.

While there is a lower class, I am in it (thanks Debs). My name is Aaron and I speak for the children, the trees, the pigeons, the women, the exploited workers, the minorities, the mountains, the air; I speak for the people of the world and all the things they hold dear (thanks Lorax).

Full disclosure: as I recall, I (initially) cared about why I kept getting teargassed on my block. I cared about that before I cared about the environment or the women or the children or the workers. But, well, we're all raised individualists in Capitalist Amerika - I hope you'll forgive me. Growing up, my individualist ambitions were meager; I hoped for security, stability, maybe family.

The expanse for which I care has grown, and with it my ambitions have as well. I'm no longer working towards a merely acceptable life for myself. We have an entire world to win - I'm fighting for that.

The oppressed peoples of the world will find a compañero in me forevermore.

Thanks, always, to the RedSails team.

Twitter

RedSails General Orientation - Jan 16, 2022 (src)

The general orientation from when Nia Frome and I [Roderic Day] started RedSails remains unchanged:

• Read "Flight From History?" by Domenico Losurdo
• Read Assata Shakur's Autobiography
• Read "Marx's Inferno" by William C. Roberts
• Watch "Black Sails"

Nia and Roderic Tweets and Media Lists

I've separated those into On Nia Frome and On Roderic Day because this got large.

index tags: @RodericDay, Roderic Day, @RedSails, Red Sails, @NiaFrome, Nia Frome, North America, America, Montreal, Canada, Communists, LGBTQ+, Health(care), Reading Lists, Technology, China, AES, State, Dialectics, Feminism, Black Liberation, Fascism, Colonialism, Media, Linguistics, Anti-Imperialism, Marxism-Leninism, The Virtual Factory, Cults and Miracles, On Crypto, China Good, China Has Billionaires, The Xinjiang Atrocity Propaganda Blitz, Anticommunism & Wonderland, Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti, Deng Xiaoping, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution, Che Guevara, On the Abolition/Preservation of the State, The Path Which Led Me To Leninism, Hồ Chí Minh, Mao Zedong, Friedrich Engels, Vihart, On Dialectics: or How to Defeat Enemies, On Jargon, Marketing Socialism, Black Skin White Masks, Frantz Fanon, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, Joseph Stalin, Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch, The Swerve, Two Cthulhus, Brainwashing, Tankies, To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing, Self-interested Anti-imperialism, Potato Sack History, Eugene Debs, Lorax, Art and Propaganda, Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game Intention and Morality, John Kessel, The Woman Question, Lori Watson, Sobrina de Alguien, Men value my opinion, Alexandra Kollontai, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Jo Freeman, In Defense of Self-Defense, Huey P. Newton, Walter Rodney, Assata Shakur, W.E.B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Kwame Nkrumah, Sundiata Acoli, A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and Its Place In the Black Liberation Movement, Domenico Losurdo

category tags: Modern Communists, Resource Lists