Faultlines, Fighting the Power, and Building a Revolutionary Movement

The powers that be tell us over and over—"this is the greatest country in the world," "this is the land of freedom and democracy." But in this issue of Revolution:

Read how a child was executed by the Detroit police. Read how cops threw a flash bang grenade into a house and moments later opened fire, how seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was sleeping on the couch with her grandmother, died after being burned and hit in the neck by a bullet (see article, page 9). Think of the thousands of youth in this country, especially Black and Latino, brutalized by the police every single day. And then read how, 25 years ago, the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the home of members of a radical Black organization, MOVE, killing 11 people, including 5 children (see article, page 11).
Read how a BP oil rig is still spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing catastrophic destruction of the environment. Read how BP is lying and trying to cover up the enormity of this crime while Obama continues to give the green light to offshore drilling (see article, page 7). Look at how oil companies are driven to "drill, baby, drill" because of this system's law of profit above all and the strategic interests of the U.S. empire, and think about how huge swaths of the planet are being decimated, deforested, and poisoned.
Read how Arizona, after passing a fascistic anti-immigrant law requiring police to interrogate anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally, has passed another outrageous law that would eliminate Mexican American studies, and all ethnic studies programs in Arizona public schools (see coverage, page 6). And then think about how a whole reactionary movement in this country, with leadership and support from powerful figures in the government, is being organized to demonize and criminalize immigrants—who have been driven across the border in the first place because U.S. imperialism dominates, impoverishes and oppresses their home countries.
Read how 50 years ago, legalization of the birth control pill in the U.S. dramatically changed women's lives, how this meant that for the first time, millions of women could have control over whether or not they became pregnant (see article, page 12). And then think about how today, reactionary forces are trying to take away the right to abortion and all forms of birth control.

Read all this. Then ask yourself—is this the best of all possible worlds? Do we have to live this way?

Read all this. Then ask yourself, don't we need to GET RID of this system?

We Need to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution

We need revolution. And we have the leadership to make revolution. Bob Avakian has developed the scientific theory and strategic orientation for how to actually make the kind of revolution we need, and he is leading our Party as an advanced force of this revolution. He is a great champion and a great resource for people here, and indeed people all over the world. And the possibility for revolution is greatly heightened because of Avakian and the leadership he is providing.

Bob Avakian's piece in this issue of Revolution, "Some Principles for Building A Movement for Revolution," provides an important framework for understanding the significance of fault line issues in society—and what this means for building a movement for revolution.

A very crucial part of the movement for revolution we are building is mobilizing and organizing people to wage real resistance and a determined struggle to NOT LET THE SYSTEM GET AWAY with its crimes against the people. And such struggle is an important part of the campaign the Revolutionary Communist Party is now carrying out to let people know what communist revolution is really all about... to get them acquainted with the leadership of this revolution, Bob Avakian and the RCP, USA which he leads... and to draw them into this movement—which puts before people the real possibility that a better world can actually be brought into being.

As the Party's Message and Call, "The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have," which is the pivotal glue of this campaign, says:

"It is up to us: to wake up... to shake off the ways they put on us, the ways they have us thinking so they can keep us down and trapped in the same old rat-race... to rise up, as conscious Emancipators of Humanity. The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world... when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness... those days must be GONE. And they CAN be."

Already thousands have been involved in demonstrating against Arizona's attacks on immigrants. Among the masses there is tremendous anger at the murder of Aiyana Stanley-Jones and beginning protests. Millions of people are just heart-sick and outraged at what BP's oil spill is doing to the environment. The RCP has a slogan, "Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution." This is exactly what needs to be done in response to these outrages—and many other towering crimes by the system. And revolutionaries need to be right in the thick of all this, finding the ways to raise the political consciousness of the people—concretely showing and bringing to life the necessity and possibility of things being a whole different way.

Resistance is essential to the masses of people not being ground down to what Karl Marx called a "level mass of broken wretches." Such struggles can serve to reveal the essential illegitimacy of this system to millions. They must be part of actually defeating, or doing all we can to defeat, the system's attempts to drive people down further, or divide them up, and put them in an even worse position from which to raise their heads. And such resistance must be waged as part of a movement for revolution if the masses are to actually achieve REAL emancipation.

This is why the role of revolutionaries in such battles is so crucial. Daily and hourly, this system carries out numerous and horrific crimes against the people. But this will not automatically lead to the kind of consciousness, organizational strength and capacity the people need to make revolution when the time is ripe. And the role of revolutionaries in organizing resistance today can make a real difference in what happens: in whether a growing section of people start to question the system's legitimacy; in whether people begin to transform their own thinking and start to see that there is no permanent necessity of existing conditions; and whether many more people come to see the need and possibility of a whole new economic and social system leading to the emancipation of all humanity.

All this is not something to just think and work for somewhere down the road, in the future. We ARE BUILDING a movement for revolution RIGHT NOW. Fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution—is a crucial part of this. And this has everything to do with whether or not, when the time is ripe, we are able to make revolution.

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