We republish below an unofficial translation of the following article from the Popular Women’s Movement (MFP), a Brazilian New Democratic women’s organization, originally published on February 02, 2023 and updated on May 24, 2023.
Postmodernism emerged as a bourgeois philosophical current in the period after World War II, with the pessimism that fell upon part of the (petty-bourgeois) intelligentsia in the face of the misfortunes produced by the imperialist wars, and especially with the 20th Congress of the CPSU, with which Khrushchev attacked the leadership of the great Stalin, launching lies of all kinds with the aim of breaking the masses’ confidence and optimism in socialism to pave the way for the restoration of capitalism and overthrowing the dictatorship of the proletariat. The French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, who became a member of an anti-Stalin “socialist” group in Algeria in the 1950s, was the first to coin the term “postmodernism” in the late 1970s, which gained greater momentum and strength, particularly within universities, between the 1980s and 1990s. During this period, the deep economic crisis of the backward state capitalism of the social-imperialist Soviet Union and the collapse of Soviet revisionism, under the reactionary slogan of Perestroika/Glanost of the sinister Gorbachev and the “Velvet” counterrevolution that overthrew his lackey governments in Eastern Europe, events widely propagated as the “failure of socialism” or the “end of real socialism”, enabled US imperialism to become the sole hegemonic superpower and were the basis for a general counterrevolutionary offensive by imperialism, convergent with capitulatory revisionism, also counting on the support of Pope John Paul II. This offensive was insistently trumpeted as the entry of the world into a “New World Order”, in which “globalization” would mean the expansion of fraternal ties between nations and “neoliberalism” would mean development for “developing” countries. The “end of history” was pompously announced, in which capitalism would be “the best possible world” and definitely the last social system to exist.
As part of the low-intensity warfare (LIT) launched by imperialism at that time, postmodernism, along with revisionism, began to play a supporting role in the counterrevolution on a theoretical and ideological level, seeking to divert the masses from the revolutionary path by denying the class nature of societies and the class struggle as the law of development of these societies, replacing these truths with the story of the struggle for “identity interests” as the driving force behind the transformation of society, and thereby denying the possibility of its radical transformation as a whole, admitting changes only at a local, private level, through small disputes over “micropowers” (in companies, workplaces, schools and universities, families, etc.). Thus, advocating the “failure” of the so-called “metanarratives” in order to centrally attack Marxism, the defenders of postmodernism claimed the theoretical and practical impossibility of knowing the foundations and social structures of a given society, which is why it would not be possible to transform it as a whole. The localist reformism that arises from this is therefore similar to that practiced by revisionism, although the latter tries to pass itself off as “Marxist”, while postmodernists openly deny Marxism and science in general, emphasizing individual “living” and “experience”. Socialism is presented by postmodernists not as a concrete possibility of social realization, but as a mere “speculation” or “hypothesis”, disregarding all science and the gigantic achievements achieved by humanity in the decades of building socialism in the 20th century, in the name of a supposed break with Enlightenment ideals.
For postmodernists, all ways of interpreting nature or reality are equally valid, because there is no objective truth about phenomena, only different points of view or different “discourses” about them. Opposing the possibility of human knowledge about nature and society, and condemning the end of universal truth, postmodernism therefore defended the existence of only particular and subjective “discourses”, as local and always “contingent” (unstable, provisional) points of view, reaching the extreme of bourgeois idealist and subjectivist relativism. Language becomes the center for most postmodernists, because for them it is discourse that constructs what we call reality. In this way, postmodern political “strategies” are reduced to the crumbs of the “incorporation of cultural and identity demands” by the old State and imperialism, centrally valuing the change of nomenclature, or as they say, the “re-signification” of “open and fluid” concepts, diverting the struggle of the masses, and among them, that of women of the people in particular, to the field of mere “discursive dispute”, or of the “deconstruction” and “re-signification” of concepts.
Postmodernist individualism and imperialism
Postmodernism is the maximum exacerbation of individualism in the period of the last crisis of imperialism. For postmodernist intellectuals, such as Lipovetsky, the individualism inaugurated by the bourgeoisie in the process of the French Revolution, for example, was too “limited”, while postmodernist individualism is “total” or “unlimited”. After all, the revolutionary bourgeoisie of that period, in addition to preaching individual freedom, also defended (at least in words) equality and fraternity among men (which would imply some limitations for the individual due to the social commitment that these latter demands, which is considered a “totalitarian” terror for postmodernists). As it quickly became clear to the masses of workers and peasants who took part in the bourgeois revolutions, the essence of the bourgeoisie as an exploiting class meant that, once it seized political power and the feudal lords were beheaded, it revealed itself as the exclusive defender of its individual freedom, the core of which is freedom from exploitation, leaving equality and fraternity as stillborn letters for the popular classes, to this day, as well as the much-vaunted “freedom”, which is nonexistent for the immense masses of people impoverished by exploitation in its fullest sense.
For the “postmodernists”, however, any situation that demands the subordination of personal, individual interests for the sake of a common benefit is seen by them as unacceptable “tyranny” and “totalitarianism”, while the subordination of millions of masses to the petty desires and dictates of a small handful of individuals in the world is classified by them as “freedom”. In fact, this is the only freedom that the imperialist bourgeoisie (and its postmodernist apologists in academia) advocate: the freedom of the individual (of the big bourgeoisie and other ruling classes, of course) to exploit the vast majority of the people (who, as in classical slavery, continue to be considered as beings devoid of soul – or individuality, for our postmodernists).
Extreme individualism is justified by postmodernists as a (desirable) process of “personalization,” in which the individual is supposedly presented with a set of “options” and can “freely” choose which ones he wishes to consume. Consumerism, so encouraged by imperialism, leading to the illness of thousands of people, goes hand in hand with the exacerbation of individualism. The individual hedonistic desire, the search for immediate pleasure at any cost, without regard for moral, political or social consequences, is justified by the individualistic maxim that “every human being has the right to be uninterested in others”. The apology for apathy and social indifference made by postmodernists in academia seeks to foster depoliticization and class alienation, justifying the unhealthy social isolation into which millions of young people around the world are sinking today, in a desperate attempt to promote moral, political and social disengagement, especially among young people. However, while they vainly proclaim that classes or class struggle no longer exist, that any social revolution is no longer possible and that this is the motto and fatal destiny of the “new era” of postmodernity, of the selfish and individual “culture of happiness”, they are only blatantly describing themselves, exposing the essence of the imperialist bourgeoisie as the most exploitative and reactionary class in history. This is also the source of their obvious failure: while they try to disseminate this rotten ideology, presented as a negation of ideology, non-ideology, among the popular classes, the latter continue to resist and collectively oppose themselves, truly as the new in society, in a way that is extremely superior, in all aspects, to the old. Socialism is young, communism is coming, whether you like it or not, gentlemen bourgeois intellectuals: bourgeois semi-intellectuals.
The propaganda of the supposed “options” and the “free choice” of “being yourself”, of “living as you want” or of the “possibility of living without depending on others”, are all apologetic expressions of the postmodernists and their supposed “individual freedom” for the “conquest of personal identity”, this identity being always “fluid and variable” – which would be the maximum of the subject’s fulfillment. Man ceases to be a social being, as Marx truly profoundly understands, and becomes the “individualized individual” of postmodernity – whatever that means! But let’s see: it is the imperialist system itself that drives the greatest ideological oppression over people, because by propagating its supposed “individual freedom”, it is only seeking to isolate the masses, in order to preserve its rotten system of extreme violation of the most fundamental rights of the people. As even some postmodern ideologues timidly accept, such freedom is limited according to social conditions, but they do not admit the inevitable: now, gentlemen, if individual “freedom” does not “include” everyone in the same way in our society (which for Marxism is an obvious and fundamental issue, since we truly live in a society divided into antagonistic social classes), the consequence of this is that the masses will turn against you with class fury no less than that directed at the ruling members of the exploiting and oppressing classes, at the fascists and other monsters, since the encouragement of consumerism and other values of social futility also become a source of questioning of this same order that you strive, uselessly, to justify and defend.
After all, postmodernists, arguing that “individual interests” should supplant interests focused on collective well-being, should ask themselves: how can a society like this prosper? Sustain itself? It is doomed to failure! With the victory of socialism in almost half of the world by the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, with which the collective interests of the class were placed (and not only theoretically, but in practice) as a priority, only then could the vast majority of the people experience (individually and collectively) the greatest material and spiritual achievements ever achieved in society as a whole in world history. For the first time and in their millions, men, women, children, and the elderly all took part in the conscious construction of society, participating in social production (no longer as exploited people!), in the development of technical and scientific knowledge, in the arts and culture on a massive scale never seen before, at all levels of formal education and in all areas and fields of knowledge and society. And this was only a small beginning!
No matter how much you spread your “post-truths,” in which versions of the facts are more important than the facts themselves, and continue to spread lies about the masses’ achievements with the democratic and socialist revolutions of the 20th century, you will not be able to nullify reality, erase it, or prevent it from developing. This is what Nazi Joseph Goebbels tried to do, for whom “a lie repeated a thousand times would become the truth” – he was defeated by the Soviet people and the anti-fascist resistance in dozens of countries; just as “Bush,” his son, and the entire press monopoly tried to do by fabricating a lie about the existence of chemical weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to justify their imperialist invasion by plundering its oil – and were chased away by the Iraqi national resistance; just as Trump, the blustering buffoon, and his far-right entourage in Brazil tried to impose reactionary coups d’état against the people, which also failed. Look at the postmodernists with their relativism that “there is no universal truth”, that “all discourse is equally acceptable” and of “unlimited individualism”, to whom they give ammunition and theoretical justification, if not to the most reactionary bourgeois, imperialist and fascist positions!
Hedonism and the false sexual freedom of postmodernists
A very evident consequence of postmodernist individualism today is the emphasis on consumption aimed at individual and hedonistic sexual pleasure, which ends up making the body, particularly the female body, a profitable commodity and an object of obsessive and oppressive concern, especially on the part of women and young people in general. Now, this is nothing new in “postmodernity” either; after all, the aesthetic standards of the dominant exploitative and oppressive classes, in societies divided into antagonistic classes and based on the exploitation of man by man, have always been imposed on the whole of society, especially women, due to the sexual and reproductive role attributed to us since the emergence of private property! What is exacerbated to the maximum, like every system in final crisis, is the sexual appeal, the deterioration and degeneration of affective relationships and the cult of the body as an erotic object of consumption, as component characteristics of an Empire in decline and on a downward slope. In this regard, women and young people suffer particular ideological and cultural, moral, emotional and psychological attacks, which try to pass themselves off as “innovative”, through supposed “choices of the new generation”, and supposed “sexual freedom” against any and all standards, “love free” from responsibilities, against “any and all morals”, but which are nothing more than re-editions of the hypocritical and rotten dominant bourgeois morality, individualistic, perhaps a shameless version of it, in which individual pleasure, devoid of any healthy values, is central and concern for others is seen as “moralism” or “traditionalism”, since relationships are all disposable in capitalism, or “fluid”, as post-modernists advocate.
We, combative and revolutionary women of the people, as well as the conscious men of our class, must combat both the use of the female body as a sexual object and commodity, and the “postmodern” fallacies (re-edited from the ruins of ancient Greek antiquity) in defense of superficial relationships between people, centered on the mere attainment of individual pleasure, without reflecting on the consequences, especially for women, of hedonistic practices, so strongly encouraged by imperialism in the present era. Male polygamy and female prostitution, as direct consequences of the emergence of private property in the early days of class society, are exacerbated in our time, under new guises, and we will not combat them with female “polyandry” or anything of the sort, under the postmodern feminist discourse of women’s “free choice,” because there can be no genuine equality between men and women in a society of exploitation! Such hedonistic practices are the cult of exacerbated individualism of postmodernism and imperialism. The masses of our people, and the proletariat in particular, defend relationships that combat individualism in all its manifestations, whether in the selfishness that is encouraged by the “think of yourself first” slogan, or in affective and loving relationships, because these must also serve to strengthen our class, in a hard struggle for the profound transformation of this old society of exploitation and oppression! Mutual commitment, solidarity, respect and proletarian loyalty among people are part of the revolutionary morality of the class, while lack of commitment, indifference, the disposable use of people (even if supposedly reciprocal!) are the opposite of this, and ideologically corrode the masses, especially the youth who are thirsty for the new, for true radical transformations and for the struggle to destroy the old.
Postmodernist feminism and the old bourgeois reformism
The political consequence of the postmodernist positions that “there are no social classes or class struggles”, that “it is only possible to dispute micro-powers locally” and that “it is discourses that constitute reality” was the defense of the pulverization of popular movements and their fragmentation into different “niches”, according to the “most particular” particularity of each class segment, professional category or gender, sexuality, race, etc. Thus “emerged” the so-called “New Social Movements” in the 1990s, as well as NGOs, driven by imperialism, all focused centrally on ethnic, cultural, gender, behavioral issues… in contrast to the (old?!) popular and revolutionary movements, of a class-based and combative nature, as we have in the world and in our country several examples, among them the MFP itself!
In the women’s movement, the impact was in the same direction, with the emergence of a “new” postmodernist welfare reformism, which positioned itself mainly in the field of defense of the so-called “identity politics”, in search of “recognition of difference” and the “deconstruction” of “male language”, especially influencing young people from the petite bourgeoisie and the university environment in our country. Postmodern feminism thus fosters the illusion of social change through the “re-signification” of signs (terms, words), which, supposedly, should result in the individual “empowerment” of women. A clear example of this position was the so-called “slut march”, in which a mediocre insult to women gave its name to a march, in which women began to call themselves sluts, seeking to change the social meaning of the word “slut”, in an alleged attitude of resistance to machismo – and the most “revolutionary” action possible for postmodernist feminists!
Some postmodern feminists try to combine the position of “re-signification through language”, which focuses on the “recognition” of terms with new meanings, with the so-called “social policy of equality”. And what does this mean? Just mere crumbs, which they call “redistributive solutions” within the same system of exploitation, that is, compensatory policies that imperialism itself encourages (through NGOs and public policies of crumbs), as a way of reducing the social tensions that threaten its declining dominance – and which solve nothing, none of the problems that affect women of the people on a daily basis! Thus, the defenders of such “policies”, who are well-accustomed to opportunism and revisionism (who have made such good use of postmodernism in academia and in their “behavioral guidelines”), by not being able to deny the problem of blatantly growing social inequality in the world, resulting from a decrepit system of exploitation and oppression, also cannot move forward in the task of putting an end to female oppression – a task that can only be achieved with the end of the imperialist system of domination and the construction of socialism throughout the world, towards the end of class society, communism.
However, postmodern feminists, who are both petty-bourgeois and bourgeois in nature, say that it is not possible to identify common ties, demands and claims of women, only of fragmented groups of them. For Judith Butler, one of the prominent postmodern feminists, it would be “illusory” to seek a “universal structure of women’s domination”. Now, if we do not identify the origin and foundations of not only female domination, but also of imperialist domination, of semi-colonial and semi-feudal domination in our country, how can we organize ourselves to end this domination over our people? This is precisely where we understand the most important objective of the dissemination of postmodernism among the intelligentsia and youth: to give up understanding and transforming reality!
On the other hand, as in all other currents of bourgeois and petite-bourgeois feminism, postmodernist feminism identifies “man” or “hegemonic masculinity” as the dominant antipode in relation to “feminine” or “femininity”. For example, Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell states that “all femininities are formed in positions of subordination to hegemonic masculinity”. For Nancy Fraser, “androcentrism” would be the way in which masculinity imposes itself as the dominant cultural standard, that is, “a standard of cultural value that privileges traits associated with masculinity, while depreciating everything that it codes as ‘feminine’”.
In this way, postmodernist feminism ends up reproducing the old refrain that women’s struggle is against men. They claim not to seek the causes and origins of female oppression, to hide the fact that, in fact, they analyze its cause in the superstructure (customs, cultural patterns, family traditions, affective and sexual relationships, etc.), particularly in “male domination” and “male” definition of such patterns, omitting the entire class character of female oppression in class society. However, they are unable to answer: why have such practices historically been constituted in this way and not in another? Even if they claim not to be “essentialists”, postmodern feminists cannot deny that they end up falling back on the logic of “masculinity” as the cause of the oppression of women, which is nothing more than a new reheated form of the old reactionary theories about the “superior male nature” and the “deficient female nature”… to avoid the debate and hide their fundamental position, they affirm, like Butler, that “the subordination of women has no single cause or single solution”, which is the same as saying nothing about the cause and solution of female oppression!
To make their positions even more diffuse and confusing (and every apparent theoretical “confusion” always has a political intention), postmodern feminists also claim that the “varieties of oppression cannot be classified.” In other words, “oppressions” are so particular, so individualized, that they cannot even have a common name, since this would be to reduce them to the “authoritarianism” of a “concept,” since, for postmodernists, “language shapes and restricts reality.” Therefore, we should speak of feminisms in the plural, since there is lesbian feminism, black feminism, transgender feminism, an infinity of particularities that, according to this position, do not have any “common base” from which they emerge and organize themselves. Now, ladies who are apologists for imperialism, what you are doing by “substantiating” false theories like this is encouraging the division and even the fragmentation of the class, and in particular, of women of the people, directly contributing to the maintenance of this same system that exploits and oppresses millions of women of the people all over the world in the most barbaric and vile way! By wanting to “put on hold” words and concepts like “women” and “oppression” so that their meanings can be “deconstructed”, you are not taking a single step towards overcoming the sexual oppression of women, which brutally and quite objectively affects half of the class on a daily basis – something that is easily identified by working women, in the countryside and in the city, with their double and triple shifts of exhausting work, facing unprecedented queues in health systems for medical care for their families, dealing with their children’s hunger, the cold, violence and humiliations of all kinds on every continent!
Crisis of imperialism and failure of postmodernism
What has resulted from this defense of cultural relativism and the validity of all “truths” or “discourses” as equally legitimate, without the possibility of critical judgment (whether from a social, political or moral point of view)? In the purest nihilism and lack of perspective on the part of the youth, seriously affected by this phenomenon, especially in the center of the greatest imperialist beast (see the recurring massacres of children and young people in US schools), in addition to individualistic hedonism and the desperate search for sensations of individual pleasure at any cost, in addition to the openness and parsimonious tolerance to the growth of fascist positions, since it is their individual right to defend their reactionary and anti-people positions (after all, isn’t this just another “discursive” point of view?).
On the other hand, the specter of communism is once again haunting the world, with the growth and radicalization of the struggles of the masses for their rights, completely discredited in the bourgeois and bureaucratic institutions of the old State, in the struggles for national liberation and in the People’s Wars under the leadership, just look, of the proletariat (that class that for the postmodernists never existed as such!) through its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Parties. And the women of the people are mobilizing on the front lines of all these struggles, allied shoulder to shoulder with their class comrades against bourgeois, landowning and imperialist domination and in defense of the World Proletarian Revolution!
