I dont know why, but many people here (mostly americans in my experience) are rabidly allergic to the word "patriotism". They seem to believe it means "jingoism" or "reactionary nationalism", when in reality those bourgeois ideas are completely antipatriotic and treasonous. There is nothing more patriotic than being a communist, fighting for the people of your country. How are you not a patriot if you love your people and want them to have the life they deserve, instead of the misery imposed on them by capitalism?
I would say most people here are proud patriots of their respective countries, but if you tell this to many american comrades here, theyll get up in arms about how actually patriotism is reactionary and they arent patriots, even though they are indeed patriots, they just dont admit it for some reason. It reminds me of some self described anarchists whose beliefs are basically marxism leninism, but theyll deny being MLs because "thats a bad tankie word". Truly a mistery why. Maybe its a reaction to the pervasive jingoism maskerading as patriotism in the USA idk.
Edit: To all the americans downvoting this, please read about the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), a very based party from an imperial core country which clearly states that they are patriots and that its their patriotic duty to oppose the EU and its imperialism.
Edit 2: Here are just 2 articles from the KKEs newspaper discussing patriotism and how its fully compatible with internationalism with quotes by Lenin:
https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=209459
https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=329397
Its in greek but just use google translate.
Edit 3: Article by the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) discussing revolutionary patriotism. The PCE is quite liberal and opportunist, but even they recognize that patriotism and communism go hand in hand. How much more evidence do you need?
Not trying to super get involved in this conversation but I just wanted to say I am an American and I can see quality in both sides of the argument. I'm kind of a centrist about it. I personally would find it hard to call myself a "patriot" unless I was trying to, in a sense, lie to get people on board with MLism. I definitely am not hard against it though. "Patriot" has so much baggage in American culture, it's almost synonymous with fascism, the more universal definition of the word that you're using though I can vibe with.
Absolutely, US is in the kind of unique situation since even the discussion about state and nation is a riverlike topic, so the patriotism is the same.
However, the entire "patsoc" issue smells like fed op to divide american comrades from the rest of the world, coming to such absurd even in this thread it's completely unbelievable for me.
I'm a US citizen, and it's hard for me to see what's there to be proud of. The identity of the working class? Perhaps, but at that point, it's being proud of something that, imo, is so far removed from the idea of America. It would be a bit strange for the bolsheviks to fidget over whether they should have been proud of being part of the Russian Empire at one point, and for me, it's quite the same as patriotism in imperial core countries.
The supposed message of being proud of the working class in imperial core countries always seems to get subordinated to the will of the capitalists in times of trouble and in war especially. Also, I don't think that nationalism is necessarily a prerequisite to caring for the collective good of people in your country.
Patriotism has nothing to do with "being proud" of anything. Were the CPC and the KMT proud of anything when they started the reunification wars? Ofc not, and thats exactly why they started those wars. Patriotism is about loving your country, and, despite what fake patriots (meaning the bourgeoisie) would want you to believe, your country is made up of its people, its not an abstract idealistic idea of "America" or any other country. China was in shambles, and it was the CPCs patriotic duty to rebuild it and save the chinese people.
This idea that "you cant be patriotic of imperial core countries" and that if you do you are proimperialist is ridiculous and doesnt exist outside of the USA. If you dont believe me, read the party programmes of european communist parties and what they have to say. A good example is the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), an ML antirevisionist and very big party that led the fight against the austerity imposed on Greece by the EU after the 2008 crisis. The KKE openly says that they are patriots, and that its their patriotic duty to oppose the EU and its global imperialism. Most european communist parties say the same thing, and the few that dont tend to be the most proiimperialist liberal and eurocommunist ones.
You americans keep repeating this lie, but its false, and all you have to do is look outside your borders to see im right. Idk why you are so obsessed with this idea, maybe its a reaction to the toxic jingoism you have over there, which calls itself "patriotism" but is not. There is nothing patriotic about joining the US military and drone striking afghan children. In fact, i would say its the opposite, its every americans patriotic duty to NOT join the US military, since the only thing that allows US capitalists to mantain their power is having enough cannon fodder to fight for them in the military.
Also i dont understand what your last sentence is about, i said nothing about nationalism.
