The terms of this debate should be made clear: in the wake of Al-Asqa Flood, should the U.S. Marxist Left (a) articulate critical support for, (b) condemn, or (c) ignore Hamas in expressing solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian national liberation. My critique of Lazare was that his defense of (b) was based on shoddy analysis that mis-used quotations of Lenin and failed to meaningfully reckon with well-known facts regarding the past two decades of Hamas’ political development. Cosmonaut’s initial editorial statement explicitly stakes out (a) as the magazine’s official position. Comrade Ross’ letter, however, suggests a position closer to (c). Yet, Ross builds the case for this on grounds that, while more theoretically subtle than those of Lazare, are equally shaky.
The principal section of Ross’ letter, that which does the most theoretical work, is the one in which he states the following:
No, Hamas is not the masses — the masses directly take the stage of international politics only in revolutionary upheavals; in normal times, the class struggle is refracted through organizations. Hamas is only one moment of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
The ontological distinction made by Ross between the unmediated, revolutionary agency of ‘the masses’ and the mediated, non-revolutionary agency of ‘organizations’ is what allows him to build a detached political position in which Hamas is isolated as a non-revolutionary ‘moment’ in the struggle. Since this moment, according to Ross, is non-revolutionary, we can ignore the question of explicitly articulating (a) or (b) in favor of focusing on the real task at hand: fighting for a Marxist position. Ross would like to believe that it is possible to “unequivocally take the side of the liberation struggle” while sidelining the specific question of Hamas, since in this schema their leadership necessarily represents but a moment, one in which the agency of the Palestinian masses has yet to emerge.
But this ontological distinction between unmediated and mediated forms of collective human agency is fallacious. There is no such thing as collective human agency that is not refracted through some form of pre-existing social infrastructure or, in other words, organization.1 Indeed, the primary problem faced by U.S. Marxists in the current moment of the struggle for Palestinian national liberation is not that the Palestinian masses are not moving, it is that the Palestinian masses are moving and this includes Hamas as a leading element. To take the side of the struggle, therefore, must necessarily include, at the very least, critical but open support for Hamas.
Comrade Ashlar, of course, already proposed this as a central problem in their letter: the masses of much of the Arab world are, and have been, moving, and this includes the organizations of political Islam in a principal position. Ross dismisses Ashlar’s use of the term “democratic” to describe the character of many struggles led by political Islam. However, in cases such as Palestine and Yemen, these struggles are genuinely democratic vis-à-vis the context of national oppression. This is a serious problem for U.S. Marxists, since we are obviously incapable of making the kinds of Marxist interventions Ross desires in mass politics that we are not involved with on the ground. This letter cannot adequately address the issue of how U.S. Marxists should relate to the primary role that political Islam is playing in the mass movements of the Arab world. But recent events in Palestine demonstrate that it is a pressing problem that we must deal with if we are to make sense of the future.
Solidarity,
Christopher Carp
- For my position on the proper Marxist theorization of ‘agency’ and its role in historical development, see my Cosmonaut letter of last year: Christopher Carp, “Letter: Collective Agency, Class Struggle, & Historical Development,” Cosmonaut Magazine, September 3 2022, https://cosmonautmag.com/2022/09/letter-collective-agency-class-struggle-historical-development/.