Overreliance on Digital Communication

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes

This article was adapted from a section of organizational analysis of a specific Communist formation. The original purpose was to synthesize the formation’s experience with digital communication and its experience facilitating a Marxist study group to better understand the relationship between the two. After sharing the original analysis, it was requested that it be adapted into an article fit for publishing. The purpose now is to urge the developed aspects of the movement nationally to rapidly raise their own understanding surrounding the negative effects of overreliance on digital forms of communication.

Introduction

Digital communication dominates much of Communist organizing. With the advent of easy access to modes of communication such as email, web forums, social media platforms, and SMS & RCS messaging, organizers have shifted a large part of their information sharing channels to digital means. Many organizations eschew in person meetings all together in favor of audio or video calls. This shift has followed a broader cultural trend with little criticism from socialist and Communist formations. Criticisms that have been shared generally stem from the anarchist sections of the national movement and are not taken as seriously by the Marxist sections.

The predominance of digital communication, specifically the forms of the group chat and the video call, has changed how organizers relate to each other and the conditions of the struggle. In many ways, these new forms of relating to each other have allowed for incredible connections between organized Communists and the masses. 

Services such as the Internet Archive, the Marxist Internet Archive, and many independent publications make the entire history of revolutionary literature easily and freely accessible. As one comrade puts it, “Marx wanted to read a book in French, so he bought French language copies of his favorite books and translated them word for word. All we have to do is find a pdf!” A wide range of podcasts, blogs, newsletters, and social media posts continue to proliferate Communist ideas. Apps like Zoom, Jitsi, and more allow organizations to hold education events such as study groups with attendees from around the state, country, or even the world. However, these connections have led to scant material organization. Many Communists communicate digitally, but do not relate to each other primarily as comrades. They produce Communist media and meet when possible, but do not develop materially powerful Communist organizations. Despite the commonly touted mass character of social media it has not proved very effective for bringing the masses together to fight for proletarian interests, nor for bringing organized Communists into materially consolidated formation. In fact, undisciplined argumentation carried out on social media has played a major role in the fracturing of the Communist movement in Amerika. Much of this digital arguing has been carried out in the name of struggle, without interrogation of class character of the digital programs by which the communication is taking place. 

Over time a reliance on digital means to communicate has formed. The causes of this reliance have been explored at length, but the effect on Communist organizing created by it has yet to be deeply interrogated. The predominance of digital communication is both a product of the physical social fracturing of Amerikan workers, while also now being a factor in prolonging the stagnation of the movement. Dependence primarily on group chats and Zoom meetings to facilitate organization generally results in an ineffective primary organization, as the physical presence requisite for developing political power among the proletariat simply does not exist. In the context of creating Communist revolution, this physical presence must be understood as the basic factor of material organization. The organized far-right is developing survival programs in the regions outside major cities and towns, and their power is not derived from digital communication networks. As Phil A. Neel says in Hinterland, 

“By providing material incentives that guarantee stability, combined with threats of coercion for those who oppose them, such groups [as the Oath Keepers] become capable of making the population complicit in their rise, regardless of ideological positions. In fact, Kilcullen points out that in such situations (epitomized by all-out civil war), support for one faction or another simply does not follow ideology. People don’t throw their weight behind those they agree with, and often many in a population can’t be said to have any deep-seated ideological commitment in the first place. Instead, support follows strength, and ideology follows support.”

We, the organized Communist movement in Amerika, do not currently have the power to combat these fascist forces. We must begin developing a material political base through material connections with the proletarian masses, and we must develop our primary organizations on material bases, lest they fall into the liberal trap of perpetually seeking influence rather than power. We must learn from the errors of the Young Hegelians and seek not just to work in the world of slogans, in the world of media, but in the world of the material.

Secondary to such inefficacy, some philosophical and linguistic contradictions arise. When fostering material relationships between comrades becomes secondary to maintaining digital relationships, material is deprioritized. Idealism is a belief system that is constantly being socially reinforced. We must steer the masses towards materialism, while studying the philosophy and constantly attempting to rid our organizations of Idealist conceptions. There is a uniquely digital idealist obfuscation of the difference between material reality and virtual reality. This foggy distinction has been wholesale accepted by Amerikan society. We must push back against this obfuscation, and make clear that organizations facilitated primarily through digital means are not materially Communist in the sense that said relationships will not develop forces towards proletarian interests. 

A major factor in the development of the obfuscation between these two distinct forms of relating to one another is the language with which the technology was/is still advertised with. Many terms used historically to describe the material world were adapted metaphorically to describe the “landscape” of the “digital space”. This language was presented to the proletariat by the bourgeoisie through advertising media. The rhetoric of this advertising was subsequently adopted on a mass scale by the Amerikan public. This language, and the rhetoric it’s based in, is simply inaccurate in describing the forms with which we communicate, and how that communication determines our relation to one another. If we as Communists seek to create lasting and effective organizations capable of working intra-formationally then we must understand how we communicate, how our communication fails, and how we primarily relate to our comrades. Do you relate to the other members of your organization primarily through digital means, or do you sit next to them? Can revolution be made by comrades who do not work next to each other? These questions are not insignificant, as we have seen many flimsy structures predicated on digital communication crumble in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd Uprisings. For instance, many of the mutual aid organizations established during 2020 and 2021 have been unable to maintain structural formation, and the BLM movement has all but vanished.

Predominance

We on the left seem largely incapable of coming together physically. Facilitating even the smallest political organization is not a convenient task, least of all for those proletarians attempting to do so. With a labor force more socially fractured than ever it is exorbitantly difficult to facilitate spending time with one’s loved ones, much less dedicated political cadre. The immediate nature of SMS messaging makes it a very useful tool for proletarian life. Members of an organization who work one or more jobs will have trouble scheduling routine meetings in person. A group chat allows for many disparate people to communicate simultaneously without the hassle of a schedule being necessary. 

However, we have another option. The most advanced elements can consciously dedicate more time and more labor to the movement as it develops. We can drive to each other’s houses, we can organize within our community, we can perform effective fractional work among preexisting material organizations of the masses. Immigrant support groups, mutual aid groups, student study and action groups, anti-apartheid groups, Latino/trans/disabled civil rights groups, etc are where the intermediate and advanced elements of the masses are currently located. The intermediate elements are those people that show potential for being developed into organized Communists, while the advanced sections are already Communists, and going to them in person to listen to them is possible. They tend to be scattered, usually alone in their political understanding, but sometimes with small groups of like-minded Communist-sympathetic workers. We, the organized advanced elements, can organize centralized study groups that consolidate these intermediate and advanced elements from different backgrounds and develop them further, both practically and ideologically, into pre-party formations and eventual party cells. These material tasks are more inconvenient, but the convenience of digital communication comes at the price of heavy limitation and operational vulnerability.

Operational Security

It is vital to remember that these digital communication forms are owned by capitalists. Communists should treat every communication using capitalist owned technology as if it can be seen by the running dogs of the bourgeoisie. This is not to say technology such as Zoom or Signal shouldn’t be used, but that it is imperative we be conscious of who owns and controls the channels with which we communicate. These services are designed to collect data about the way we use them, about our habits, our relationships, the way we text each other, the way our faces move when we speak. The Israeli Offense Force has been (not so) secretly using digital facial recognition technology for at least a decade. The IOF trains Amerikan police and intelligence operators. This sharing of technology and tactics that led to the mass sharing of itemized data measuring the activity of human life has given the bourgeois and its lackeys a large vista of knowledge already. We should not continue giving our enemies information about us.

Speaking with comrades in a room presents far less inherent security vulnerabilities than texting them, as cell phones can be turned off or put in separate rooms. Physical presence also reinforces the sense of collective belonging that is so rare in contemporary Amerika. Such a belonging is, for many, a necessary prerequisite for constructive struggle. Quoting again from Hinterland, Neel writes,

“Since this material community of capitalism unifies only through a wide-ranging alienation that forces all individuals into dependence on its own impersonal infrastructure, the emergence of new, intensive communal practices are a recurring threat. All unity that is not the unity-in-separation offered by the mechanisms of the economy poses at least some level of risk, since such spaces offer the germinal potential of a dual, communal power capable of seizing and repurposing this infrastructure to truly human ends.”

The Social Phenomenon of Disability

While group chats and video calls can be very helpful for ensuring our disabled comrades can engage in organization, it must be asked what we are really saying when those comrades are constantly relegated to being represented by pixels on a screen. If we truly care about enabling everyone in our communities to organize we must first make it possible for them to come at all.

Predominant capitalist infrastructure does currently make disabled comrades less capable of materially engaging with the movement the same way capitalist infrastructure makes disabled comrades less able to materially engage with all of their surroundings. That is what disability is. We should recognize it and start establishing transportation networks and physical communication networks to actually allow everyone to engage materially, rather than accepting measly capitalist reforms that are insufficient for our task.

We must develop organizations with the material capacity to require able bodied members to lend their time and labor to those members experiencing disability. Seeking to change each individual member’s mind on whether or not they want to pick up the comrade that can’t walk nor drive ignores the organization’s responsibility to create structures that incentivize certain social behaviors over others. Having the organizational capacity to discipline members that don’t share in the labor of transporting comrades experiencing limited mobility ensures able bodied comrades will materially engage (albeit, lightly) in the struggle to end disability as a social phenomenon. As more comrades of all abilities are able to attend they will bring more accurate sense data to meetings, and the social-productive basis of disability will be laid bare.

Practical Issues

Within a Communist formation struggle is the necessary type of communication with which collective correctness is reached. Without the proper communication channel to conduct struggle an organization will fail to develop political positions or programs, as well as fail to mediate disagreements between comrades. In organizations that overly rely on digital communication the failure of struggle stems from the fact that the primary mode of relating member to member is incomplete. 

In many ways developments in digital communication have heightened the efficacy of certain aspects of pre-digital mediums, however the general understanding of engagement with physical mediums such as written/printed words on paper, or more specifically speaking to someone face to face are not idealized in the way the understanding of engagement with digital mediums tends to be. A group of people writing letters to each other would not call themselves a Marxist organization, nor a cadre. However the error is made with digital communication. It is thought that because we see the text, images, videos, audio, profile pictures, etc of these other disparate Communists we are in organization with them. The truth is Communist organization must be material, and its social basis must be material. Texting and video calls are not a material basis sufficient for struggle in the Communist movement.

The nuances of human communication extend beyond the capacity for photons to accurately represent. Approximations such as emojis or a raise-hand button fail to accurately replicate their respective real world counterparts. In group chats, frenzied influxes of messages are difficult to parse, as well as generally unfocused. Nuggets of truth are ignored, as is any message deemed unimportant or simply drowned out. Synthesizing new ideas from the hodgepodge of takes and quips, generally produced by Zoom calls and group chats, requires an immense amount of personal labor and organizational form. Such organizational form and labor capacity is usually lacking in organizations over-reliant on digital communication.

Here we see that labor capacity and organizational form are in vital need of development, as well as an understanding of the way these two aspects relate to what respective form of communication is primary. Often failures to develop these two crucial aspects are blamed on a lack of discipline practiced by its members. It is thought that if only comrades could use digital communication in a disciplined manner, then the organization would develop. However, as Communists we must recognize that general individual adherence to discipline is a direct outcome of an organization’s ability to promote and develop discipline. For example, take an instance from my own organizing experience in 2021. In a now defunct organization, the primary channels of communication were a series of group chats. More than seven respective group chats existed, their purposes not being worthy of note as they were never fulfilled. The only programs of activity were sporadic Zoom meetings. Decisions were chosen by vote of thumbs up emoji. Eventually the central committee decided to address the issue of organizational stagnation. This came after a vote was called in the general body group chat. Of twenty-six members only six voted. Had the vote been called at an in person meeting the issue of abstention could have been identified and struggled over. In such a case the struggle would take place within conditions conducive to development, as all members would be present and engaged at the same time. The group chat form does not allow for assurance that all members are engaged nor even present and is incomplete as a primary mode of relating comrade to comrade.

One way for a Communist formation to assure presence, engagement, and conditions favorable to development is to meet routinely in person. Routine meetings ensure allotted time to the necessary facilitation of a formation. Audio or video calls can suffice, but they are not ideal due to the nuances of communication obscured by the technological limitations discussed prior. An added effect of routine meetings is the reinforcement of organizational discipline. Through the struggle of facilitating in person meetings we learn valuable organizing skills, and practice fundamental aspects of discipline such as comradely communication and punctuality. In such a physically disconnected time for many people in Amerika simple socializing is largely in need of practice. We must actively teach ourselves collective social responsibility, starting consciously with those revolutionaries close to us.

Routine, in person meeting itself is not sufficient for the purposes of a Communist organization. Such a standing meeting acts as a material basis for struggle, but that basis must be struggled on to develop the organization. Unity must be assured through struggle over various topics consistently, lest false unity develop into a destructive force. 

For example, I was a member of a study org that met in person biweekly to study and conduct a business meeting. It went well, until a split occurred over the basis of the group being primarily friendly rather than on Marxist principles and a unity of purpose. This study organization had formed out of the liquidation of a former org that was based primarily in a series of group chats. Coming out of the first org we recognized the necessity of a material social basis. Coming out of the second study org we recognized the necessity of assuring unity. The primary factor that made the difference in establishing a social basis for proper, disciplined struggle capable of assuring unity in our now third form is the material nature of meeting routinely in person. 

Philosophical Issues

Aside from the practical issues, over reliance on digital communication can illuminate certain philosophical and linguistic issues. One such issue is the misconception that physical presence and communicating via digital media can be described as equally materially in the context of Communist organizing.

Communicating digitally and in person meetings are different in one key way: one is media, the other is not. Media represents the material world, and media exists in the material world, but a picture of a pipe cannot be said to materially be a pipe. One cannot smoke out of a picture of a pipe. As Communists we seek to work and struggle in the material world, not just the representations of it. Images produced by visual technology and the humans they represent are not the same. In person there is no bandwidth limit, there is no lag, there is no edge of the frame, there is no disparity in microphone quality. In person there are full, human people to relate to materially, to form organizations with. When these two real things are confused for each other, important distinctions between identity, speech patterns, and presentation crumble. 

Take, for instance, the lifespan of a working group for a now defunct organization I worked with. The primary mode of relation of the group was a weekly in person study session. Some members attended an International Working Women’s Day event which sparked discussion and education on the topic. A distinctly proletarian feminist philosophy was burgeoning in the organization due to the immediate threat of sex-assault. That and the social reinforcement of regular discussion and study. We talked about what we knew of manipulation and abuse, engaged with feminist art, and theorized how to ignite more involvement with the movement.

Soon after this feminist boom a member was expelled due to serious chauvinistic actions. Following their expulsion it was decided that a working group should be established to address the issue of gender chauvinism. This could have been a moment for progressive organizational development, but instead the group’s momentum was halted completely by the creation of the Prol-Fem Working Group group chat. Now that the focus of the group was digitally centered the engagement dissipated. 

What existed before was a loose, informal, material basis of regular congregation. By creating a group chat we replaced this congregation with a rigid set of points on a screen. The effect of removing the basis for social practice was clear: social practice slowed and eventually halted completely. 

We were correct to recognize that the group needed structure. Our error was that rather than interrogating the necessities for structure we created a group chat. It was the form of the group chat that de-prioritized the material content of feminism that we engaged with before, and presented a singular, digital structure to send information to. We needed material structure to formalize a special meeting of the working group, and establish necessary roles as the group developed. Instead we attempted to form structures digitally, removing the informal structure that did exist.

Without a basis of material presence social practice loses its importance and power. The material nature of Communist organizing is obfuscated when media is considered synonymous with material presence.

Conclusion

By idealizing forms of digital communication as spaces to organize within we severely limit our capabilities as Communist revolutionaries. To be “in” a group chat, to be “on” the internet is to interact with technology that accesses those forms of communication. It should never be confused with occupying space. In a time when that confusion is being so acutely exploited by the bourgeoisie to obfuscate the differences between media and reality, let us heed the words of Olufemi Taiwo literally when he implores us, “to build the kinds of rooms we could sit in together.”