False Nationalism False Internationalism: Class Contradictions in the Armed Struggle

by E. Tani, Kaé Sera

This study is a radically different investigation into one of the most critical--and least understood--zones of revolutionary work: the struggle for solidarity between the left in an oppressor nation and rebellions against that nation from the oppressed. In other words, the difficult solidarity between colonizers and colonial subjects. Continued now in perhaps even more chaos in the dusky end time of imperialist neo-colonialism. This work explores political questions of pro-capitalist classes and opportunism, of euro-centrism and settler colonial privilege. Between peoples and organizations trying to guide revolutionary armed struggle.

This critical history between radical forces within both oppressor and oppressed, has played out most significantly in the u.s. empire between the white left and Black revolutionaries. But the book begins first with reviewing earlier major revolutionary efforts at solidarity and joint international work in early 20th century Russia, and then the protracted overthrow of neo-colonial capitalist China in the 1920s-30s. Also bringing into view how u.s. solidarity for the anti-fascist fighting then in both the Spanish Civil War and Ethiopia's resistance to Italian invasion, was handled in a way that both defused and handcuffed domestic Black anger to white "Communist" leadership.

All before moving to the study's main contested battleground in the great 1960s violent rebellions in the u.s. empire, ebbing but continuing even into the early 1980s. This book was published in 1985, and was not intended for any general readership at all (it only appeared in paperback book form to facilitate being mailed into prisons). If its language is harsh, and the analysis blunt and unsparing in its anger, they reflect a time when revs were dealing with deaths and fugitive lives and mass incarceration and the smashing of organizations and communities.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory

341 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Kersplebedeb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't read this book when you are feeling lazy, or not paying attention. It deserves better.

One of a small number of works to come out of what i see as being the most interesting, and ambitious, revolutionary school of thought in the 1980s, FNFI is written from a Maoist, pro-national liberation perspective. It doesn't pull its punches, and it doesn't try to be "p.c." in its fairly ruthless evaluation of the corruption and opportunism which plagued the revolutionary movements in the united states.

i disagree with - or at least see as no longer valid - some of the suggestions the authors make about the need for nationally distinct revolutionary organizations. but i'm a whiteboy with no claim to any experience in actual revolutionary struggle, so i'm aware that my position is based on just that.

i also remain unconvinced that the RATF was an "encapsulated gang" - i think human weakness and errors in judgment can be enough for bad things to happen, the state does not always need to be involved.

Regardless of these disagreements, nowhere have i ever read such an impressive and honest account of the movements that came before. This is the history that both the State and some sections of the left would rather not see discussed.

i cannot recommend this book strongly enough, not only for what it says but as an example of what a revolutionary methodology looks like when approaching people's history. In the end the lesson i came away with was not about Maoism or nationalism, but simply that in struggle, we need to always strive to be good people.

[ben.wmv · Rating 4 out of 5]

certainly a grand scope of national liberation movements in the prisonhouse, but immensely troubled in its class analysis, or really, lack thereof. raises plenty of important, unsolved problems, but its scathing interpretations are marred by polemic and awkward attempts to suture the eponymous schematics onto history. compare that with the analytical clarity of Settlers, where conclusions are drawn from the immanent elaboration and critique of history, not from without. It’s unfortunate too that RYM II and the entire New Communist Movement are basically dismissed as “bourgeois Marxism”, besides the occasional ignominious cameo from Bob Avakian 💀

may 2024: I don’t exactly understand how “false internationalism” maps onto the comintern’s rocky relationship with the people’s war in China… but this book really shines when it gets to the relationship between oppressor and oppressed nations in Amerika (and the scope is truly magisterial). It perhaps is overzealous in shooting down some positive aspects (e.g. the work of the 30s CPUSA—though the CPUSA and other revisionists today love bringing it up so maybe fair enough to slap a reality check down), but the questions and problems posited are deathly important still, especially given the past few months, with our student organizers casting themselves as the inheritors of the popular legacy of the Euro-Amerikan 60’s campus revolts.

[J. Moufawad-Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book years ago when I borrowed the coil bound version from a friend. Rereading it now in its "proper book" format, having read a lot since then and able to mark it up (since I couldn't with my friend's copy), allowed me to have a better appreciation of its content. The class analysis, the placing of the US radical movement of the 60s/70s in a world context, as an attempt to provide a diagnosis of what went wrong––it is a pretty masterful, albeit polemical (and I don't mean that in a bad way), text. Usually FNFI gets compared to Settlers since they were both released around the same time, by the same underground press, and share a common terrain (the critique of "Euro-Amerikan" setterlism). But in retrospect, I think FNFI is a much more rigorous work than Settlers that works hard to provide a concrete explanation of a concrete situation through a rugged historical and class analysis. Moreover, you can definitely see its impact on Sakai's more recent work, particularly his book on the lumpenproletariat.

Although I know FNFI was intended to be a movement text for surviving revolutionaries from the period it is examining, there is a lot in this book that should be put in conversation with Kelley's Hammer and Hoe, Burden-Stelly's Black Scare/Red Scare, and other similar works. A lot of intersections, a lot of common analyses, but different divergences. I'd even say that Dylan Rodríguez's work on domestic warfare and counter-insurgency would benefit a lot by engaging with this text, and vice versa.

The main weaknesses of FNFI are two-fold. The first, which is relatively minor, is its analysis of the Canadian-based LSM (Liberation Support Movement) where the authors write that the "LSM refused to deal with the complex problems and duties of making revolution in the US oppressor nation." This error speaks to the US exceptionalism that a text such as FNFI should have been critical of despite its prevalence at the time. Why would a Canadian organization have anything to do with the duties of making revolution in the US oppressor nation when Canada is its own oppressor nation distinct from the US? Although Canada is also a settler capitalist social formation, it is not the same social formation as the US and its pattern of oppression unfolded quite differently, though with some overlap but Britain and France also had some overlap. These are not the same oppressor nations, they have different laws and different histories, and so while it is true that the LSM may have refused to deal with complex problems and duties, these had to do with its work with the Canadian oppressor nation and not the US oppressor nation. Although it is indeed the case that Canadian anti-revisionist ML organizations in that period pushed the notion that Canada was not an imperialist nation of its own and under the thrall of the US, this is a position that has been discredited by revolutionaries from the 80s onward––Canada is its own imperialist settler nation.

The second weakness is that E. Tani and Kaé Sera are dismissive of the New Communist Movement in the US that followed after the New Left. They treat it as a return to the old communist party building movement, and dismiss it in a few sentences here and there, without any real analysis. The NCM was indeed quite different from the CPUSA, and in many ways had a higher level of political development than the New Left that FNFI treats as being more unique. Leonard and Gallagher's Heavy Radicals, for example, demonstrates how the FBI found the RU/RCP to be more of a threat than the WUO. And though I also agree with Tani and Sera that Bob Avakian is a clown, it is also a fact that he wasn't initially a clown, nor was the organization he helped established initially clownish, but it became so through a history of degeneration for internal reasons that could perhaps be analyzed according to false nationalism and false internationalism. Let's not forget that the RIM's existence, which was important for a lot of international revolutionary movements, was brought into existence largely because of the RCP-USA… But at the same time, the RCP-USA also sabotaged the RIM when it turned out it couldn't be in charge of all the Third World groups.

In any case, this is an essential movement text. As the publisher's review also says, I don't know if I agree with the claim that the RATF was an "encapsulated gang", and I think its analysis of David Gilbert and the other Euro-Amerikan actors is a little unfair regarding their motivations, but it is still a hypothesis worth considering in an overall analysis about the RATF that is correct. I also think it should be necessary reading for those who glorify the BPP as the height of revolution in the US based on the folklore surrounding it. There is a reason the BPP and other radical movements in the US were defeated and it is not, as the authors remind us, simply because of external contradictions (COINTELPRO, etc.) but because internal contradictions are decisive.

[Adrián Mandeville · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was optimistic going into this. I think an analysis of the relationship between revolutionaries of oppressed and oppressor nations is valuable and essential. I think movement histories are important as well. The Civil Rights era movement history is solid and its notes on security are good. However, the main weakness here is the framework of False Nationalism and False Internationalism. Its starting point is not a concrete analysis, but this framework it attempts to apply to many different situations. One size fits all. I began to doubt whether anything could qualify as true Internationalism, since you could even poke holes in the positive examples it gave.

It reveals its own colors by elevating the program of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) and puts a premium on armed struggle. The RNA never had the mass base of the Black Panther Party (BPP) it polemicizes against, and the text acknowledges that picking up the gun makes you a "lightning rod". It confuses the strengths and weaknesses of the BPP. Notably, no mention of George Jackson. I appreciate the spirit of criticism, but it leaves much to be desired.

In general there's a defeatist position around what white revolutionaries should do (nothing, it seems). Black revolution for the Black Nation, Euro-Amerikan revolution for the Euro-Amerikan nation - but it doesn't answer where there's a social base for revolution in the Euro-Amerikan nation (probably because there isn't one). I actually shudder to think what a Euro-Amerikan revolution would look like, isolated from the multinational proletariat, for fear of promoting "False Internationalism".

[Isaiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for those in the movement in the US. The writers come from a position unfortunately foreign to us now, but one that we would be fortunate to recover amidst the widespread uprisings of 2020. The insights offered are remarkable in their precision as well as their wide range, from pre-revolutionary China to (what was then) present day, and cover essential components of the movement like security, solidarity, and leadership. Also a standout for its no holds barred approach to polemic with various facets of the movement and unafraid airing of dirty laundry. As the authors put it, movement secrecy around past mistakes hides not from the state but from the people.

[sube · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exception - it is important, worth re-reading, but gets 4 stars because of the issue: a lot of the first chapters especially rely on problematic/outdated sources, and a lot is simply wrong. But why is it important? It deals with an important issue at hand to this day: how "international solidarity" has served to undermine movements of liberation in oppressed countries. Often mentiond - never explicitly discussed, this book does it through a discussion of Russia, China and the Ethiopian solidarity movement, to at least its focus: america, esp. the 60s and 70s. This is where it shines, in America, giving a perspective on these various movements unlikely to be found in another sources.

However, the previous chapters - more historical - are rife with problems, especially the chapter on China, where a lot is factually not correct at all, but with the Russian chapter it leaves out a lot, where it cites it as example of genuine 'internationalism', even if its praxis leaves a lot to be questioned.

Nonetheless, despite all its problems, it is an important, rewarding read on a topic normally ignored.

[Freddy Freaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good history of the US Left. But the argument that Euro-Amerikans should have their own organizations and "build up their own nation" is weak. They analogize the US to Japan, but the point of Settlers is that the US is fundamentally built on settler-colonialism, unlike Japan or France which at one point had a truly proletarian history to call its own. They rightfully point out how petty-bourgeoisie & lumpen class interests distort movements, but why would settler class interests be any different? It's hinted that feminism would keep euro-amerikan movements "in check" but this isn't ever fleshed out. The alternative solution of settlers subordinating themselves to truly proletarian colonized movements is never considered.

[Brian Mcquaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tani and Sera trace the history of how New Afrikan political movements have interacted with settler communists and vice versa from the 30s-70s. I their critiques of how a petite bourgeois class position themselves to benefit from movements while staving off revolution is cutting. I appreciate their critiques of both the New Afrikan and white underground of the 70s but find some of their historical narration to be contradictory and harsh. I think it’s important to keep in mind the text was never supposed to be wildly available but i am extraordinarily grateful it is. I think this text is an amazing tool to learn from the successes and failures of the 30-70s.

[KT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent critique of supposedly communist movements in the USA during the 1960s, in particular the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground (WUO) that stresses the important of reaching a consolidated understanding of the past period, so that its lessons can be used in the new period of rebuilding. Summing up the past to leave the past.

False internationalism is defined by the authors as a class alliance between petty-bourgeois and lumpen opportunist elements from both oppressor and oppressed nations and one of the main forms it takes is that white people are seen as the answer to the problems of the oppressed nations, this is rooted in neocolonialism and Eurocentrism. This inevitably promotes slavish attitudes of the supposed superiority of oppressor nations, of the imperialistic way of doing things. As exemplified by the WUO's petty-bourgeois character as vandals and shock troops, but not disciplined communist soldiers, meaning they would never directly engage in the armed struggle necessary for national liberation. Instead only speaking of building revolutionary culture, meant WUO only engaged in empty lip service, while stile being drawn to the most reactionary aspects of bourgeois alternative culture - opposing women's liberation and allying itself and glorifying partriarchal drug subculture.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in anti-imperialism especially rooted in the imperial core.

[Rebecca]

This book is an important document in the recent history of the revolutionary Left through and after the Weather Underground. From a political point of view, the argument is self-righteous, self-justifying & excessively judgmental of others, or in a word, sectarian. What makes a choice falsely nationalist or falsely internationalist? Disagreeing with the authors, whose own positions could easily be called "false nationalism" and "false internationalism" by someone else (and probably have been) because there is no logical or consistent measure provided for making these judgments. It is upsetting to read because it is widely read by young people (including myself many years ago) and reminds me of the tortured knots that people could tie themselves into denying and mistrusting their own political judgment for fear of not being radical enough.

[Canyon Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

my most favorite book of the year. its hold nothing back and forces a radical reader to consider what these good faith critiques have to offer. it is not enough to say, "well what have the authors done?" and "who are they to say this?". No, this book forces you to accept the facts, to understand racist and imperialist international paternalism, and what that means for the constructed nation we fight and the groups with.

this is essential reading for the revolutionary, radical, communist/anarchist activist. it is easy, for the common reader who is interested in organization, strategy, pressure politics and activism. It is for the revolutionary who can appreciate criticism, and once passed meanness, we see why we are where we are structurally.

[L. A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enlightening. FNFI is an excellent resource for anyone who found "Settlers" to be valuable, with a lot of detailed examples from the 20th century that are studied with a refreshing clarity, depth, and honesty.

[Daphne · Rating 5 out of 5]

among the greatest books i’ve ever read

[Mirza Sultan-Galiev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite MLM and “hard core” anti-imperialism ( where the contradiction between oppressed and oppressing nations is viewed as the primary contradiction), being far from my cup of tea, this is still an incredibly enlightening and myth busting history.

[Abdifatah]

So far an extraordinarily difficult text.