By Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA
Revolutionary Worker #1105, June 3, 2001, posted at http://rwor.org
A very sharp contradiction of our road to power has particular application among the youth, especially the youth among the basic masses: If we could go over immediately to armed struggle as our main and essential form of revolutionary activity, we could increasingly draw in the masses, and especially the youth, to be part of that armed struggle, giving conscious and organized expression to their hatred of the system and their desire to fight. But we cannot get off into that. We cannot make armed struggle our main and essential form of struggle, and we cannot and must not get onto a "war footing" with the ruling class, until it is time to wage war against them for real--until there is a revolutionary situation and therefore a basis to launch the armed insurrection (and then carry forward the civil war) with a real prospect of winning.
There will be forms of armed self-defense of the masses against the brutal oppression of the system and its enforcers, and we can see how this can play an important part in the overall process of preparation for revolution--preparing minds and organizing forces for revolution. Yet, even with this, because we cannot now make armed struggle the main form of struggle--because we cannot and must not get into an actual war and onto an actual "war footing" with the ruling class until there is a revolutionary situation and we are prepared to lead the masses to wage such a war all-out and to win--because of this, it is more difficult now, in some important ways, to give expression to the desire to fight, especially among the youth.
WE CANNOT AND MUST NOT LOSE A WHOLE GENERATION OF OUR PEOPLE, OF THE BASIC YOUTH IN PARTICULAR, TO THE MADNESS AND DESTRUCTION, AND SELF-DESTRUCTION, THE SYSTEM HAS PREPARED THEM FOR AND SET THEM UP FOR!! In some ways, and just looking on the surface, it appears that many of our youth are killing themselves--and killing each other. But, if we step back and look at this in a broader and deeper way, with the scientific outlook and method of MLM, we can see that this is just another way that the system is killing them, once again. And we cannot, and will not, let them keep on doing this to our youth--robbing them of a life with meaning and purpose, and robbing our class of some of its most crucial fighters for liberation.
We must and we will find the means to bring these youth into the revolution in ever greater numbers, beginning with the advanced youth who are drawn toward revolution, and who in turn can be "levers" to much broader numbers of youth, especially as the situation sharpens, as the overall movement of resistance develops and the revolutionary trend gains strength. And even when our youth fall into the clutches of the enemy and go into prison, we do not and will not give up on them--we will continue to find the ways to win them to revolution in this situation as well and make this one key part of preparing for revolutionary days.
This is a problem the Party is devoting great and continuing attention to--to find the ways to deal with this contradiction and to bring forward the fighting spirit and daring of the youth and win them to a revolutionary orientation and train them as revolutionary communists, under our conditions and in accordance with our necessary road of political preparation and mass resistance laying the groundwork for and then going over to armed insurrection (and civil war) when the revolutionary situation emerges. This will remain a difficult contradiction to deal with, all the way through--through the whole process of preparation for revolution and until the revolutionary situation does arise and it is then possible, and necessary, to make revolutionary war our main and overwhelming focus and form of struggle.
The Party is determined to continue making strides in dealing with this big and difficult contradiction--in bringing forward our youth into the one cause and the one fight that really represents their interests and their highest aspirations. And even when they've been dragged down into all this other shit, nobody can tell us that our youth don't have these higher aspirations.
In this challenge particularly, there is a crucial role for revolutionary youth, taking up and applying MLM under the leadership of the Party: to help further and more concretely "discover" the means and methods that can give the fullest expression to the desire of youth to fight, while at the same time raising their sights to the lofty vision and aims of the proletarian revolution and an understanding of both the necessity and possibility for this revolution; to develop and apply these means and methods in accordance with our conditions and road of revolution, to bring the youth of our class and youth from the oppressed masses broadly into the ranks of revolution and into the ranks of the RCYB and the Party, so that they can fight in the fullest sense and fight in their own interests, in the interests of liberating the oppressed and ultimately all of humanity. This is a key part of the mission of revolutionary youth.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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