The time has come to coin the term Hollywood Opportunism, which is different from the opportunism described by Lenin.  It is an opportunism of the mind and of the dreams. It is more psychological than other forms of opportunism, which mostly tend towards conciliation and self-destructive cooperation with capitalist and middle-class forces.  The prey sees its own flesh more as food for the predator than as a necessary part of its own body, as it becomes dominated by the more powerful mind of its hunter.  Appeasement becomes the primary directive, the enemy king becomes God, and prayers for mercy to such deity becomes the only means to organize opposition.

Lenin made the fight against such weakness within the party his main objective in his struggle to build the Bolshevik party.  The creation of the Soviet Union changed the balance of power in favor of the working-class, allowing it to more easily construct its own parties throughout the world.  However, once again, those parties fell under the influence of a contradictory force, namely the Stalinist bureaucracy and its various allies within the imperialist countries.  The workers’ demands grew in force throughout the 1930s, but to risk being called the devil, who reappears throughout eternity in various animal forms, I say the beast of the revolution once again was tamed and turned into its opposite as a servant of the system.

A force so close to Marxist consciousness at the head of the international working-class, in Europe and the United States, should have been able to topple the capitalist class in the imperialist countries and create a new era of socialist workers’ states and federations throughout the world.  As Marxists lead these mass movements, however, they abandoned Lenin’s historic struggle against opportunism in favor of various maneuvers to cooperate with and turn on their capitalist masters.  These maneuvers rapidly submitted to observation and analysis from fascist and liberal capitalist political movements, thereby giving those forces the upper hand to divide and control the working class.

The stabilization of this new balance of forces allowed the rise of a new well-studied bureaucracy within the capitalist states specifically suited to counter the rising power and consciousness of the working class revolution.  They found a way into the popular consciousness through the various forms of media.  Chief among them is the military-entertainment complex of Hollywood, which spends billions annually on the theoretical struggle to disarm Marxism and dominate its representatives as openly and fully as possible as if to tame a bull or a horse, then display it, dead or alive, as a Menshevik trophy of their conquering.

Lenin would have it otherwise, of course, and so would his followers in the revolutionary tradition.  To be human, rather than a tame animal, means to stand up and differentiate one’s self from the masses, and to say to one’s enemies on earth, “I am both an individual and a symbol of what you hate.  Target me as you will, but justice is on my side. I will always prevail!”  I, not we, because I do not hide or act frightened, for death would be preferible.

Such artistic confidence is necessary in the intellectual struggle against the stranglers of the revolution.  That complex, which is Hollywood, can only be dominated and the minds of the people freed, through a more far-reaching militant-artistic movement which claims artistic space on a mass scale.  A real technical talent must at times isolate one’s self in search of a perfect creation.  However, that isolation does not equal invisibility, it represents the creation of a stronger, more unbreakable connection with all humanity on the higher plane of ideas and solid, consistent theoretical achievement.

This higher connection, however, must descend, through the work of the organized movement, into real locations to accomplish real intervention on behalf of the workers in their struggle for existence and their struggle for power over the state.  This may take the form of displays of artwork, murals, posters, songs, mass-publication of writing, dances, marches, all forms of theater, etc.

In conservative periods, when the capitalist economy seems to be expanding into the foreseeable future, the hidden apocalypse, like a serpent in the bush, fades in the mind.  The reality of instability and the possibility of a sudden venomous bite, cannot hinder everyone from exploring the bushes in search of berries.  So, to protect us all, we have to enter armed for the fight against the serpent, anticipating rather being lain for in wait.

The most important thing to remember about the new form of opportunism, the psychological opportunism, the Hollywood opportunism, is that it is based on the new balance of power created by the Russian Revolution.  A workers revolution is inevitable, but so is a fascist backlash, so is the appearance of gangsters, as in the failed 1927 revolution in China, to quickly remove the revolutionary leadership as heads of the movement.

Opportunism, aimed at reconciliation with liberalism and now Stalinism as well, means turning a blind eye towards the dangers posed by fascism and counter-revolutionary violence to gain a temporary boost in position through limited access to power.  An unprincipled alliance, like the one Stalin brought the Soviet Union into with the media-savvy Nazi government of Germany, does not protect the borders of the movement but rather brings them closer to full-scale invasion.

Turn down the deal with Hollywood!  No more willful blindness to counter-revolutionary violence!  End the careers of the provacateurs in the revolutionary movement!