To all revolutionaries and fighters for emancipation:

THIS WEEKEND, IN FERGUSON, TEXAS AND EVERYWHERE ELSE...

Prepare the Ground, Prepare the People and Prepare the Vanguard—Get Ready for the Time When Millions Can Be Led to Go for Revolution, All-out, With A Real Chance to Win.

August 21, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Right now people everywhere are, as the RCP statement on strategy puts it, “searching for answers and open to considering radical change.”  Many people are going to Ferguson right this weekend to protest the murder of Michael Brown and commemorate his death and revolutionaries should definitely be there as well.  This is the key front of struggle, right now.  At the same time, people have also gone and will be going to Texas, in the urgently important battle to defend abortion rights there, and acting in the “week of defiance” there set to begin on August 25.

But to do what?  To carry out the orientation of the “three prepares” in the title.

Prepare the Ground—that is, aim to be part of influencing millions of people and society as a whole in a positive direction... toward revolution, toward fighting against the outrages of this system, toward a new world.  What people have already done in Ferguson has had a tremendous positive impact in this regard.  Their courageous resistance has broken new ground.  They have influenced the thinking of all of society.  What people in their millions now see as just, what they see as tolerable, and whether they think you can fight and win allies as you do—all this has changed in people’s thinking.  But it must go much further.

Revolutionaries need to be in the thick of pushing that further, in Ferguson and elsewhere.  They need to be acting in accordance with the orientation that we have laid out at Revcom.us.  The most basic demands for justice in this outrageous murder have not been met.  Instead of justice, they are bringing down on outrageous police-state repression and they are right now preparing public opinion for a sellout, slandering Michael Brown and “planting doubt” when things are really quite clear.  Hell No!  There must be resistance to this, and this must continue and intensify now.

As revolutionaries act in accordance with this point, they need to be spreading revolution.  Wear the “Revolution–Nothing Less” tee-shirt, or the BA image tee-shirt, and have extra shirts in your knapsack to sell or give out.  Have large banners and signs. Whatever signs and banners you make, put a big REVCOM.US at the top of it.  Get the “3 strikes” poster out to people and encourage them to use it as a sign. All this, right in the thick of things and in one of those rare moments when the media is compelled to pay attention, spreads the message very broadly that a movement for revolution exists... that this movement is about fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution...  and that there is a way to hook up with it.  This is a point that the vast vast majority of people don’t yet know... and need to know!

Prepare the people – and this has three dimensions.  First, right among the masses as they are struggling, raise people’s sights to the different world that is possible and to the leadership that exists, in BA and the Party that he leads, to get to that different world.  Get out tons of QR cards that link people up to BA’s New Year’s message and, where possible, listen to it with people right on the spot.  Fight for the right standards as we go forward with people in struggle.  Have with you, and give out and engage people with, the sampler edition of “Break ALL the Chains.”  Tell them about the campaign to raise big money to get BA Everywhere.  Bring your copy of BAsics yourself, as your basic handbook, but get into it with people too.  Get as many people as you can to go to revcom.us on the spot, thru their phones.  And in all this—let people know that there is a Party that is following the leadership of BA, that this party has a strategy for revolution and is actively working and fighting make all this real, that there is a place for them in this Party and supporting it, and that they need to really find out about it.

Second, give people a way to get organized.  This means directly with the revolution itself – making sure they get e-subs to revcom.us, finding ways to contact them, letting them know about the Revolution Club, etc. In the midst of this people need to learn about and get  involved in making the October 2014  Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration the most powerful statement of thousands—we say NO MORE, THIS MUST END (see stopmassincarceration.net)—and the fight against the degradation and enslavement of women and StopPatriarchy.org.  If people are interested, get ways to contact them.

Third, develop direct support among the people FOR the activities of the movement for revolution right now.  If you are going to Ferguson, or Texas, and if you are active in social media, post this and ask people to financially or otherwise support you and others in doing this.  If you ride the bus there—and “riding the ‘hound” is a great way to go!—let people on the bus know what you are doing, introduce them to the revolution, and see if they can help you with places to stay or people to contact.  There are many many people who are not themselves ready or able to go down, but who would support others who are doing so.

In all this, talk with people... listen to them... what do they aspire to and how do they see things and where do they feel stymied... go back and forth with people on different questions and learn more deeply HOW they are thinking, and the texture and contradictions of that. This should include those who have been “on the front lines” as well as those who are stepping forward to support them.  All this should be guided by what is in the Invitation from BA.    Reflect on and report what you’re learning to the website.

Prepare the vanguard—this has two dimensions: first, among people who are interested in the vanguard or already working with it... isn’t now the time to grapple more deeply with why such a vanguard is needed... and with what their role in relation to it needs to be?  This kind of discussion needs to go on all the time, but it is definitely—in the middle of big battles like this—NOT something to “bookmark for later.”  It is something for now—what is one’s life going to be about, when the opportunity to fundamentally change the direction of a planet hurtling to disaster actually exists?

Second, further develop our collectivities as revolutionary collectivities.  Get together, consciously apply BAsics, the Statement on Strategy, and the guidance at revcom.us, constantly ask ourselves are we taking as much initiative as we can, within those guidelines and with the right discipline.  Remember this point from BA at all times—and fight to apply it—that “nobody can say exactly what the conscious initiative of the revolutionaries might be capable of producing, in reacting upon the objective situation at any given time...” (Making Revolution And Emancipating Humanity, Part 2: "Everything We're Doing Is About Revolution"). Evaluate, as you go, how we are doing at having societal impact, what is the character of that impact, and how we can amplify or sharpen it?

Dare!

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