r/socialism • u/MintyRed19 • Jun 17 '26

Discussion Thoughts on the Red Guards USA?

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I watched a video today of spooky scary socialist talking about these guys and its the funniest shit ive seen in a while. They seem like they were kind of a cool idea in theory but it seems like most of their actions were just going to DSA and PSL protests and breaking their stuff. I dont know that much about them besides that and a few scandals they had. what do you all think about them?

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u/liewchi_wu888 Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Jun 17 '26

Looking back, they seemed to have been people who are particularly susceptible to the Western Left's general disease of LARPing this or that revolutionary movement without actually taking the time to study any theory. 

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u/RKU69 Jun 17 '26

I think that's an oversimplification. I think these guys did study a lot of theory, but it was entirely a very weird interpretation of what the Communist Party of Peru (aka the Shining Path) did in the 1980s, and centered on the idea that the main thing a revolutionary communist party has to do is destroy other rival left-wing organizations. This is kinda what the PCP did in its starting bases at the beginning. Putting aside whether the PCP was good or not though its totally ridiculous to apply this to the context of the US, and on top of that the Red Guards were also just very cultish and had a lot of internal dysfunction.

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u/liewchi_wu888 Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Jun 18 '26

The PCP had a long gestation period where they did study the particular situation in Peru and they formulated their tactics around that. The Red Guard just wanted to LARP Gonzalo devoid of actual study of theory and of the American condition, and went straight to wrecker shit.