We Need Mass Organizing to Defeat State Violence
Marx, Lenin, and other theorists of socialism are teaching me how the state and capitalism function, which in turn has helped me to understand imperialism, colonialism, oppression, and my own lived experiences.
Additionally, Marxist history has taught me the power of the working class. When discussing and deciding democratically with clear intention and action, the outcomes have better results—but of course not without repression from the state. The immense and powerful state violence is an essential topic for us to discuss. How do we protect ourselves? How do we hold ground? How do we support, and gain support in numbers?
As a Marxist, I want to encourage people to share what they think and invite others to do the same, and then discuss it together.
State Violence Unleashed
Organizing revolutionary demonstrations is not an easy thing to do; the priority is our collective safety, as self-defense is necessary against a ruling class that is willing to deploy deadly violence. Looking at pro-Palestinian demonstrations we see this violence from police, the state, and from Zionists.
We saw the same behaviors in 1970 with anti-war protests during the Vietnam War. Four Kent State University students were murdered and nine were wounded by the Ohio national guard on Kent State University campus. Mississippi police murdered two students and wounded twelve more at Jackson State University. Los Angeles Police murdered two youth and a journalist at the Chicano Moratorium antiwar rally in East Los Angeles.
Keeping these historical events in mind, I think secretive organizing methods prohibit mass organizing and democratic inclusion. These methods don’t allow for wider community involvement or for the working class in general to participate. I believe the strongest solidarity and most effective organizing comes from understanding each other’s perspectives, reaching democratic agreement, and building trust in one another as comrades.
In the case of Palestine, hundreds of billions of dollars of US tax dollars have been given to the Israeli apartheid for the past 75 years without popular knowledge and consent. The ruling class and the state have been discussing and planning for decades their clear intention and actions to remove Palestinians from their homeland, and to destroy Palestine in order for the imperialist objectives to grow and expand Israeli colonialism and militarism in the region.
Bipartisan Empire, Genocide, & Repression
The increasing scale of violent repression against those who oppose imperialist war from inside the US shows how determined the ruling class is to squash dissent. This also shows how vulnerable and worried these architects of empire become when their blood-drenched actions are opposed by determined resisters, like those holding down the campus encampments spreading across the US today. US and European funders and backers of the Israeli entity can only think and act as imperialists in relation to the necessity of expanding Zionist project in Palestine, which is why they are willing to drop the superficial veneers of “democracy”, “freedom of speech”, and “civil engagement” when they feel their interests are threatened.
In 2016 the Obama administration signed a deal that gave Israel a guaranteed aid package of $38 billion over the next 10 years, from 2019 to 2028. In 2018 Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, validating Israel’s colonial ambitions to declare Jerusalem as its capital. Before this, “Jerusalem” has been historically known as Al-Quds and recognized as the rightful capital of Palestine. This was a significant loss to Palestinian liberation and self-determination as the US ruling class advanced its Zionist project through the erasure of Palestine.
Since October 7th, the Biden administration has backed Israel’s genocide of Palestinians with “iron-clad support,” even as Israel has destroyed up to 57% of buildings in the Gaza Strip and 75% in Gaza City. On April 24th, Biden has encouraged more destruction, genocide, and war; signing an imperialist military aid package allocating $95 billion worth of war materials to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. In an absurd attempt to show its “concern” for the well-being of Palestinians—while simultaneously genociding them—the same package includes $1 billion of humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
For Mass Organizing
The idea of secret and exclusive planning doesn’t seem logical if the goal is to defeat US imperialism. This method is especially doomed to fail if we understand that the only way to defeat imperialism would require mass coordinated action that extends into communities and workplaces that necessitates working class participation in all forms. What’s more, if we want to end imperialism, which would require the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the taking of power by the proletariat, mass organizations of the working class would need to lead such movements. In other words, to win socialism, the masses of people would have to take control of the economy, and create new institutions and methods of class rule that could then actively dismantle all systems of exploitation—and thus end capitalism, imperialism, and Zionism.
Today we are observing universities across the United States building solidarity encampments on their campuses with violent police arrests and responses. Columbia University students were the first to start these demonstrations. In recent years, Pro-Palestinian student organizations at Columbia have been building unity, working together, and finding ways to coordinate mass organizing. With a strategic plan and clear agenda of collective liberation, students have made it possible to host pro-Palestinian demonstrations after both Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace groups were suspended in 2020.
Marxism claims that people change in struggle. A member of the Colombia SJP group stated, “[The administration] thought that by shutting down SJP and JVP, they would successfully silence the voices of students that fight for freedom. But instead, they created an even larger coalition of student groups across all affinity groups and activist groups and other groups to be present.” I think this is a significant statement that clearly proves Marx’s theory that change occurs during struggle.
Amid rising campus struggle, Biden intervened directly to attack the students and shamelessly defend Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, falsely stating: “This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous, and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.” This is pure gaslighting and shameless propaganda in defense of imperialism and Zionism and shows the extent of how far the decrepit ruling minority is willing to go to lie, delude, and defend a rotten and genocidal system. They want to destroy people to save their system. We need to destroy their system to save the people.
Izzy Tellin is a worker, activist, writer, and artist based in Madison, Wisconsin.
