The Marxist Response to Chauvinism
The problem of chauvinism
Chauvinism is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “excessive or prejudiced support for one's own cause or group, in particular male prejudice against women.” The ruling/owning/exploiting class uses a multitude of chauvinisms – racial/national, sexual, gender, religious, dis/ability – to explain or justify the enforcement of laws and social codes that keep oppressed groups locked in economic precarity. This serves to maintain a reserve army of labor and applies downward pressure on wages for all workers, particularly those from oppressed groups. Myths and stereotypes about the oppressed groups become self-reinforcing as their reduced socio-economic status is mistakenly seen as something intrinsic to those groups rather than a result of the prejudiced laws and practices of the land.
The capitalist ruling class uses their control of the state, as well as their control over the production and dissemination of media, information, and culture in general, to pass down chauvinistic attitudes to the masses. In other words, while many prejudices held by those in the exploited classes are handed down to them from past generations, the beliefs themselves are not organically self-reinforcing. Many types of chauvinistic beliefs and practices long predate capitalism – for example, misogyny – but they each adopt a character specific to capitalism.
Progressive & reactionary “solutions” to chauvinism
The liberal, idealist conception of these chauvinisms locates their origin in the imperfect soul of an imperfect humanity. At best, idealists can only prescribe two paths: a life of self-flagellation and repentance for the original sin situated in the oppressor group and vapid platitudes and infantilization for the oppressed. They mistakenly identify prejudice as an individual moral failing rather than the result of historical processes. There is, then, nothing for us to do to solve the problem but throw our hands up and try to be “a better person.”
The reactionary “Marxist” approach of tailism is potentially even more harmful. Reactionary “Marxists” say, “the working class holds reactionary views, therefore, we must also hold those views so as not to alienate them.” Here again we find infantilization. Some go further, claiming that any concern for the struggle of oppressed nationalities, genders, sexualities, etc. is itself liberal or bourgeois. They point to the acceptance or promotion of certain exceptional members of these groups by the bourgeoisie as supposed proof of this. Those who say this cannot be mistaken for anything but bigots, liars, and distorters of Marxism.
We know from history that colonial powers have always needed some members of the colonized population to control the rest, providing them with better treatment, incentivizing them and dividing them from their brethren. This was as true in colonized India as on the slave plantations of the US South, and the practice continues with Black and Brown police officers, soldiers, prosecutors, mayors, governors, generals, and presidents.
The bourgeois acceptance of individuals from oppressed groups into their ranks has traditionally been the exception and not the rule. This selective inclusion is a useful tool of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie can point towards the handful of “ascended” individuals granting them plausible deniability that oppression against said groups even exists. This is the exact trap that reactionary or “patriotic” “socialists” fall into time and time again. The truth is that, as imperialist nations increasingly rely on the labor in their colonies, the imperial bourgeoisie is able to loosen their grip on their domestic proletariat. This alleviation from special oppressions in the imperial core is always conditional, meager and superficial, and subject to reversal whenever the capitalists decide there needs to be a ‘tightening of the belt’ in order to preserve their profits.
The correct solution to chauvinism
What then should Marxists do when we encounter workers and oppressed people who express these chauvinist attitudes as we carry out our work? Should we shun and shame them, insisting they “educate themselves” on these matters before granting them the opportunity to organize with us? Should we adopt their backward ideas as our own, as a way to “appeal” to their sensibilities? Both flawed attitudes reflect the progressive liberal and reactionary liberal approaches to the problem, respectively. As Marxists, we must resolutely reject these paths and instead take the scientific and proven path. This path can be summed up in the words written by Mao Tse-Tung:
The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts: the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements.
The attitude of Communists towards any person who has made mistakes in his work should be one of persuasion in order to help him change and start afresh and not one of exclusion, unless he is incorrigible.
It’s the duty of Marxist revolutionaries to identify the most politically-active detachments of the oppressed and exploited people, educate them in the science and practice of organizing, and organize them towards spurring the intermediate strata into action. The intermediate strata, in turn, wins over the backward elements, and the process repeats itself until the whole mass of the working and oppressed are mobilized into political activity that advances the interests of their class. This is a long, drawn-out process during which we will encounter many pitfalls and setbacks, but only by learning from our mistakes and doggedly pursuing a scientific, materialist approach to addressing these historical prejudices will we find the path to socialism.