The Spectre of Communism Returns!: On Darializa’s Deleted Tweets
An opinion on CNN's 'exposure' of Darializa Avila Chevalier's radical past.
Behold, a fearsome Communist: Darializa Avila Chevalier!
It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
— Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
We Communists, it is said, have returned after a long period of dormancy. Everyone is saying it. Mayor Mamdani is a Communist, the DSA is full of Communists; or, if you ask certain Democrats, Republicans themselves are the real Communists!
Modern politics has become a big trial, and everyone stands accused. The charge is Communism. From his venal pulpit, ‘Truth Social,’ a platform full of lies, even the big orange rapist himself proclaims boldly that "the Communists are finally making their move"—that he's "been waiting and preparing for this moment for a long time."
We Communists are a little confused, President Trump. We have not yet made our move. We were going to, but it seems our 'Democratic Socialist' cousins have jumped the gun a bit, and already earned themselves the allegation. But it is a title they do not deserve!
The terrible news is making landslides across the webscape already. Didn't you know? Darializa Avila Chevalier—one of the new DSA candidates endorsed by Mamdani, victorious in her primary, and canvassed for by legions of starry-eyed youth activists, who selfishly demand an improvement to the conditions of their lives, who won her primary through the demagoguery of the left-wing populists, who is an all-around manifest enemy of freedom, liberty, democracy, and America itself—was probably a Communist at one point in her life, as evidenced by newly discovered tweets.
Another “Communist” Tweet from DAC’s account.
We Communists are used to this charade. The story runs like clockwork every time. Some activist or organiser with relevance attains political power, and the ugly truth is revealed that at some point or another they had connections to us 'far-left' devils, who use these friendly faces to advance our true agenda of barbaric class-hatred. We, from our archipelago of mutually-antagonistic book clubs and demonstrable lack of success, let out a dreadful sigh. We went through this with Obama, where the right was outright convinced that a perfidious race-Communist had infiltrated the high offices of state, that the Democratic Party was an outwardly Marxist formation, advancing socialism. If only!
Yet now, with the political 'centre' finally forced to the defensive, defending an indefensible status quo, reiterating again and again the brazen lie that they are ultimately a force for good, these slurs are no longer coming from the right alone. They are coming from the Democratic establishment itself, rearming themselves, in good Clintonite tradition, with a rhetoric of triangulation.
It's no surprise at all to us, then, that the first mainstream report on DAC's assuredly terrible tweets, that good liberal democracy could never support, did not come from the right! The call came from inside the house: CNN! This liberal-leaning media titan, in between its habitual bouts of carrying water for genocidaires, has now turned its guns on even Democrats, as the party cannibalises itself ever further in an attempt to reckon with reaping what it's sown.
We are not going to take for granted the political neutrality of CNN's silly little article. We are literate human beings who can read between the lines, and understand this is little more than a hitpiece. The author, Andrew Kaczynski, is inviting us to believe DAC's apologies aren't earnest, and hopes that by airing her dirty laundry her credibility may be damaged. This did not work for them in the case of Graham Platner, who had dirtier laundry in far higher quantities, and no matter how much aired did not prevent him sailing through the Democratic primary in lieu of the incoherent establishment candidate standing against him. But perhaps it will work this time?
Nevertheless, the evidence is laid bare for DAC's many crimes against democracy, freedom, and America. It cannot be disputed. Kaczynski tells us loud and clear:
Avila Chevalier, a sociology PhD student whose victory sent shockwaves throughout the Democratic establishment, has been under fire for a since-deleted Twitter account, previously reported by CNN, that included phrases such as “seize the means of production,” along with calls to abolish police, prisons and borders. Other controversial tweets include one that said Black and Arab men are both “Fetishizing ugly colonizer women” and another that described wiping her dirty hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin.
We are told that DAC had a Twitter account where she made edgy posts in support of Communism. We are told these posts involve police abolition, prison abolition, border abolition, seizing the means of production, and a cringeworthy take on interracial dating. For those of us who use Twitter, this all appears as fairly common for a socialist on the platform. In the eyes of the rest of society, however, they are thought of as so thoroughly beyond the pale that they must be damaging to her credibility, even now—or so Kaczynski surely hopes.
Kaczynski, who formerly wrote for Buzzfeed (you may laugh), has built his career off of this sort of 'reporting'. He is, in a quite literal sense, a scandal-monger, looking for embarrassing things politicians do, without regard for faction. This is a particularly parasitic model, even by the standards of journalism, without a definite political project of its own, largely used as a cudgel by any wealthy interest and wielded against any given actor.
But enough on Kaczynski. History will bury him. We will return our interest to DAC's tweets, which are what we are interested in.
So, this hitpiece's motives established, will it succeed? I believe Kaczynski and his rag outlet will be disappointed. It's an exercise in cancel culture, which didn't work when the left used it and won't work when it is used against the left. People do not care about people's pasts anymore, for better or worse. People, generally, want an answer to Trump, an answer to their real problems.
The scariest answer to this, for Kaczynski and his ilk, isn't: "I'm voting for her anyway." The scariest answer is: "so what?"
It was the job of liberals to keep the lights on. They have failed to do so. Now, it is the turn of the 'Democratic Socialists', their leaders, their figureheads. They have acquired the momentum of the moment. They have met the tension closest to its source. Of course, as us Communists are well aware, the DSA are not Communists. But this is what they are called by their opponents.
The American bourgeoisie, who for so long themselves could not be credibly claimed to believe their overuse of the term 'Communist!' as a lampoon in the tradition of McCarthyite "red-baiting", now use the same slur with a different tone. When they denounce Communism, they mean it.
Too long have the Communists been relegated to yet another artifact on history's scrap-pile, its once-mighty name reduced to an attack line—an afterthought. But its ghost lived on. The bourgeoisie have always remembered their greatest opponent, even if the proletariat has not. They remember. It is etched in the very history of their class, when, in 1917, working people advanced their own interests and seized power. For a moment, hope was in the hearts of the workers—and in the hearts of the bourgeoisie, dread.
We have not forgotten, either. We arrive regardless, advancing in defiance of the history so written by the victors of our past battles.
And now, when the bourgeoisie invokes the name 'Communist', they find it a far less effective line of attack. They take the fundamental demands of the 'Democratic Socialists', and they say, "this is Communism!" They fail to see how the popular demands of the Democratic Socialists only give Communism a better name in the eyes of the workers when the two are linked.
For Kaczynski and CNN, they perform a marvel of propaganda work for us. For many a worker, when someone is tarred with the name Communism, it only improves their estimation of the accused. From bourgeois media, we learn that these 'Communists' are in fact the only people with a sane plan—the ‘Communists’ are the only ones who care about the lot of the workers—the ‘Communists’ are the only ones willing to fight.
No, we criticise the DSA from another angle. We say that the DSA are not in fact Communists, not because they have taken the wrong direction, but because they have not elaborated their struggle enough. All across the organisation, we see the scars of conservative half-measures, of demands that only go part of the way. But it is their definite opposition to the existing order which is denounced as Communist, and which rapidly wins the hearts of the masses.
Did Hasan Piker not call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, to the applause of the students at Yale? Did Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez not nod along to him when he lamented the collapse of the U.S.S.R.? The language of a Communism now holds credence in the Democratic Socialist movement. But it is not our Communism being touted.
It is very possible that DAC, vehement denials notwithstanding, retains her Marxist sympathies. But she is not part of a secret conspiracy of Marxists in the DSA who will, upon conquering state power, usher in Communism. We view history as class struggle, not a tapestry of states and their leaders, of 'great men'. For as long as the bourgeoisie allow their impotent attack dogs like Kaczynski to only focus on the raw virtue of the latter, they will get nowhere. People need to eat before they care about tweets, and food is expensive as it stands. But likewise, we, with the correct view of history, that explains better the platform for our advance, must not take a few tweets in isolation as evidence of our victory; rather, an opportunity for it.
We cannot tell the masses to stop struggling in the fashion they presently struggle. But we must elaborate that struggle beyond its initial, vulgar premises. The historical mistake of the reformist union movement was resting on its laurels upon winning concessions, steadily letting the power by which they were won corrode until they were left with zilch. When they give you an inch, take a mile, then ask for another inch. And if they don't relent, take another mile. Repeat. We are not interested in the concessions, but the power itself.
DAC is accused of Communism, but this is where we must interject with our own propaganda lines. We are the true culprits of this heinous crime, and we plead guilty to all charges. We are the monsters the bourgeoisie are seeking, we are the ones carrying the cause, and we are readying another offensive, one that will advance not the DSA as an organ unto itself, but the class in general. We believe this not because we are (necessarily) insane—in fact, we are probably more sensible than the bourgeoisie, who are currently doing a terrible job of running things. No, we believe this because of a competing conception of history, one that we believe is useful for understanding society, and thus advancing Communism.
We are accused of wanting to abolish property rights. We plead guilty. We, the proletariat, do not have much property, and yet the bourgeoisie have it all. It is thus very evident to us who these 'property rights' really protect.
We are accused of wanting to abolish nations, such as the United States. We plead guilty. The nations to which we belong are giving us very little, but the bourgeoisie get a lot out of them, and yet, through international commerce and communication, work toward their abolition. But they flinch, because they know these nations are the base of their power. So again, we know who they really protect.
We are accused of wanting to abolish the family, tradition, religion, law. Yes, we are guilty of defending the dignity of the woman and the child, of the outcast, of the atheist, of the criminal. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. We are everything that is alleged of us.
It is to these ends that our demands are directed. All else follows. We must say to the bourgeoisie: you can tar us with our own demands all you want. It will not prevent the advance of Communism. We will seize your property and socialise it. We will take your towers, your yachts, and the planes you flew to Little St. James Island. You have no grounds to criticise us, your moral authority has evaporated, and the demands of the Communists sound more reasonable day by day. We are quickly reaching a situation where, if a politician is branded as a Communist, the worker only has to say: “All the better for her.”
This is a historical conundrum of your own making. You made savages of us, we willingly obliged, and now we are going to expropriate your houses. DAC is an exponent of a politics that does not care about bourgeois respectability, nor does it see a shady Communist past as a necessarily bad thing. The rabid attacks of capital's running dogs like Kaczynski only prove that the present conditions for Communism in the United States of America to reveal itself and its demands are unprecedented in their favorability throughout the nation’s history.
The spectre of Communism, long thought vanquished, finally returns, and it haunts all the Earth—it is time for the Communists to vanquish it for good, and meet this weak epithet with the strength of its real positions. We tell the bourgeoisie: your moment is over, your chances are spent. We are no longer coming for concessions, but everything you own.