Victor's Children #8: Is The Enemy of My Enemy My Friend? Campism and Emancipatory Politics Today
Sep 16, 2021
Barnaby Raine, socialist scholar and PhD candidate at Columbia studying visions of capitalism’s end. He defines campism and 'tanky' politics, traces their history from Molotov-Ribbentrop to 1968, and contrasts old Soviet apologias with today’s pessimistic defenses of autocratic states. He argues for socialism as democratic popular power, explores campism’s emotional appeal, and discusses building felt, future-focused emancipatory politics.
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Campism Turns Class Struggle Into Geopolitics
- Campism deflects class struggle into inter-state geopolitics, making defense of a state synonymous with defending socialism.
- Barnaby Raine traces this from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia as logic examples.
Pessimistic Campism Defends States Against Hegemony
- Contemporary campism is often pessimistic: it defends authoritarian states as the only bulwark against US hegemony rather than idealizing them.
- Raine calls this a left Fukuyamaism that accepts limited options and prizes anti-imperial alignment over popular power.
Statist Socialism Sacrificed Popular Power
- Socialism recast in the 20th century as state management and economic intervention lost its earlier emancipatory focus on popular power.
- Raine argues this shift made statism the default left response, weakening demands for workers' self-rule.