Rebellion against ICE repression – a dialectical lens

By Jonas

In downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 30, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were barricaded in their own headquarters. The outside of the building is tagged with anti-ICE graffiti, and an entire dumpster has been positioned in front of the main entrance (and exit) to the building. Protesters with gas masks threw pieces of wood and other large items to add to the barricade. Eventually, the dumpster was set on fire.

This act of resistance to overt state violence — the kidnapping and killing of neighbors and family — was understandable to say the least. Many people might even say aspirational. However, aspiration doesn’t quite cut it if we really aim to bring about a new system.

Our task must be to analyze how and why things happen so that we may organize towards effective resistance as quickly as possible. Innocent people have been jailed, kidnapped and killed in the U.S. for years – before many of us have even been alive. So what motivated this specific action at this time and in this extreme manner? What pushed people over the edge to the point that they were collectively ready to die to make their voice heard in this extreme act of protest?

The answer may lie in an important method of Marxist analysis: dialectical materialism.

In order to accurately portray the principles of dialectical materialism, we must first examine the difference, in Marxist terms, between materialism and idealism. As scientific socialists, we believe in the importance of material conditions, such as the destabilization of Global South countries by imperialism that drives immigration. We also put importance on ideological factors, such as racist “great replacement” theories that compel fascists to attack oppressed nationalities.

Although both material conditions as well as ideological factors are to be taken into account, in accordance with the principles of scientific socialism, we understand that the material conditions are primary — meaning that the real life measurable factors such as housing status, income, class, etc. are the primary driving forces behind what people generally believe.

When analyzing phenomena, we must first begin with the material conditions of a situation in order to understand the material forces behind the ideological components. To quote from the Black Liberation Army (BLA) study guide:

“Why did a baby die in a fire? Was it because God willed it, or was it because the house was a fire trap? Why is the infant mortality rate so much higher among the poor than among the wealthy? Is it because poor people are innately inferior, weaker, more susceptible to illness? Or do the better conditions inherent in a higher standard of living have anything to do with it?

“Why are the penitentiaries filled predominately with poor people? Are poor people innately evil, ‘bad’, etc., or are the concrete conditions of their environment the overriding factor? … According to how one analyzes these situations will one deal with them, hence be more or less scientific — be more or less effective.”

Dialectical materialism

It is not as simple as to say “material conditions drive everything.” Ideas are also a very powerful force that drive people to act in certain ways, creating new conditions. people’s “idealist” beliefs lead them to take certain actions, and those actions then lead to changing material conditions, which then lead to a new set of beliefs. This is the dialectical part of dialectical materialism.

The word dialectics evolved from the Greek word for dialogue and describes a back and forth relationship — basically a conversation. Although the material conditions are primary, the material conditions impact people’s ideas, which move people to behave in a certain way, which inevitably leads to new material conditions.

There is a dialogue between the material and the immaterial at all times. To use our example from earlier: U.S. imperialism destabilizes the Global South economies, which drives people to emigrate in search of a better life (material condition).

The natural progression of capitalism to imperialism leads to increasingly unstable conditions among the working class in the imperial core (another material condition). The combination of increasingly unstable conditions for settlers in the U.S. combined with an increase in immigration from Global South countries mixed with a healthy dose of propaganda from the capitalist state then drives up nationalistic, racist and fascistic ideology among the settler working-class ideology, aka the superstructure.

Quantity into quality

One very important law of dialectical materialism is the law of quantitative changes leading to qualitative changes. An easy way to understand this concept is the following example: A block of ice sits over a flame. With each degree of warming, the ice begins to melt. Each drop that falls from the block of ice can be seen as a quantitative change.

Eventually, once enough heat has been applied, the entire block melts and transforms qualitatively into a puddle of water. The quality of the water is no longer frozen into a solid; it is now melted into a liquid. Thus, the quantitative changes (increased heat and slow drips) lead to a qualitative change (transformation from a solid to a liquid).

We want to make it very clear that this explanation is greatly oversimplified, and we encourage you to see the readings listed at the end of this essay for a more complete explanation.

Here is the important question: How can we use this method of dialectical materialism to analyze social movements? In particular the blockade of ICE headquarters in Los Angeles in January.

There are several ways that this framework is useful. First, we can analyze the opposing forces. On the one side, there are the bourgeois state forces — armed agents in ICE and police departments. On the other side, we have the people — organized groups of anarchists, communists and radicals who want to see an end to the violence their communities are facing.

Each violent act of the state radicalizes more people. Each racist statement from the Trump administration makes the people more angry. Each recorded kidnapping makes more people conscious enough of the situation that they want to do something about it.

Many quantitative changes take place over time: more people become concerned, more people join organizations, more people plan to act. And then, one day, an agent killing another innocent civilian is caught on camera — one too many — and everyone jumps up at once, shouting, burning and rebelling. The people act bravely, risking their lives to make their voices heard by any means necessary.

We want to re-emphasize the importance of studying in depth the principles of dialectical materialism and to learn to apply them to your daily life. These principles are used consciously or unconsciously in all scientific methods and can be applied to most areas of study, especially revolutionary organizing.

The capitalist state will stop at nothing to maintain the system that continues to allow them to exploit us until they are forced to stop. We must continue to study, and we must continue to act. And we must blend study and action together in what some might even call a dialectical manner.

Additional readings: “BLA Study Guide” (chapter 5, page 57), Mao, “On Contradiction,” and Stalin, “Dialectical and Historical Materialism.”

The writer is a leader of Mutual Aid Scientific Socialism.