But it's not just outside guerrilla armies that can make this mistake of fighting without adequately knowing the conditions, then consequently failing. Communists from the given region's local areas can commit this error as well; what undermines them is unwillingness to sufficiently study their own conditions. This is proven by all of those examples of homegrown Maoist guerrillas who've acted dogmatically. And in the imperial center, there's even more of a danger of those who seek to become the revolution's vanguard falling into this trap. We're in a country that's not only the prime benefactor of global imperialist extraction, but a settler colony that only exists due to the continuation of a colonial occupation and a refusal to pay back the African nation. Consequently, we have organizations like the Center for Political Innovation mixing communism with the U.S. flag, and with fascist rhetoric about "international bankers." These kinds of factions may as well be foreign, because they seek to impose a reactionary-adjacent governing model that's modeled after Europe onto the territories of hundreds of indigenous First Nations.
The proletariat will not win here if these chauvinistic and ahistorical ideas dominate the socialist movement. They'll alienate the colonized proletariat, just as the Shining Path's dogmatism did. Which will produce antagonisms that sabotage the revolution. We must study decolonial theory to avoid the chauvinistic errors of groups like the CPI, and we must do so while avoiding the ultra-leftist errors of the Maoists. The revolutionary program that will work on this continent is going to have to be a new one within the history of communism. One that throws out the innately reactionary patriotism towards the country it exists within, and embraces a post-colonial paradigm to replace one of settler-colonialism and empire.
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