We are living in rare times. In the country [Colombia] and in the world. Times in which “all the contradictions have been gathered in a single knot” amplifying the “seismic fault lines” in society in multiple ways, unevenly and some localized, but most with global impact.
The situation seems to be similar, though with aggravating factors, to the situation of a year ago: Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has seriously increased the possibility of a direct clash between the imperialists which could easily lead to a nuclear holocaust... The threat of more war is growing, from the China Sea, through Central Asia and the Middle East to much of Africa... The waves of refugees fleeing for their lives on almost every continent, due to hunger, “natural” disasters, war, etc., do not cease to grow along with all kinds of racism and xenophobia... The destruction of the environment, which even threatens the very extinction of humanity, continues to intensify... The degradation, dehumanization and patriarchal subjugation of women is off the charts, and is battering rights such as abortion in the United States… Impoverishment and unemployment do not cease to grow, along with more exploitation and oppression...
The defenders of this system condemn this as “the unacceptable face of capitalism.” But it is not. It is the face of capitalism. When we see that these same situations directly or indirectly impact places thousands of kilometers apart, we should stop treating them as isolated phenomena and recognize the pattern. For a long time, the planet’s problems have been highly interconnected.
In Colombia, this May 1st arrives under somewhat different political conditions than in previous years. The important uprisings of the last almost four years—21N (November 2019 to February 2020), 9S (September 2020), and 21A (April to June 2021), with daily fighting in the streets—had a significant impact on the political landscape, showing desperation and fedupness with the state of things in general, and were a key factor in paving the way for Petro to win the presidency.
After the uprisings were appeased with the election of Gustavo Petro (a former militant of a nationalist and reformist guerrilla movement whose points of reference were Simón Bolívar and the conservative general Rojas Pinilla,1 the hopes of the hopeless were reduced to near-sighted confidence that the Petro-ist “human capitalism” would become real. Even many of the former revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s, who by bloody or bloodless means were actually fighting for democratic socialism, have been co-opted into the new government bureaucracy enraptured that their former goals will be realized with Petro.
The democratic socialists—in their “most radical” form—have always had the “vision” of taking over the machinery of government (within the system itself) and “making it serve the people.” But, however disguised it may be, this is a dictatorship. The class (which continues) in power has a monopoly over the machinery of oppression and the “legitimate” use of force, and the armed forces that it created reflect the reactionary values and relations of this system. All talk about “reforming” capitalism is based on a wrong idea about what capitalism is, as part of, or in addition to, deceit and self-deceit.
This May 1st, Petro wants to repeat López Pumarejo’s farce on May 1st, 1936. And with the Gilberto Vieira’s and the Eutiquio Timoté’s of today, he will try to promote his version of the “revolution on the march” of the liberal party and of the “little liberal party” which has always been the Colombian “communist” party.2
It is now time to face the real deal that, for decades, all the anger and discontent with the existing order and its crimes, and all hopes and aspirations for a better world, have been locked within the narrow confines of the existing order, and ultimately, they have constituted nothing more than a useless critique of the system, while the system suffocates humanity’s life
The people who took to the streets in the outbreaks of 2019, 2020 and 2021, will largely fall into more hopelessness as they see the illusions of many people frustrated in this new dead end, but they have a place in the fight for the real solution—revolution, nothing less—which is being built in Colombia and in other countries by revolutionary communists, armed with the vision of the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, including importantly based on “the whole world comes first.”
▪ if you refuse to accept the patriarchal degradation, dehumanization and subjugation of women and all oppression based on sexual or gender orientation;
▪ if you refuse to accept the impoverishment, unemployment, and the moral and intellectual degradation of the people;
▪ if you refuse to accept the war against the people, the massacres, forced displacement and criminalization of the youth;
▪ if you refuse to accept the discrimination and oppression against indigenous and black peoples and all kinds of racism and xenophobia;
▪ if you refuse to accept the stifling and persecution of dissent, and critical and scientific thinking, and the promotion of all kinds of superstition;
▪ if you refuse to accept the degradation and destruction of the environment;
▪ if you refuse to accept domination by imperialism, food dependency and wars for empire…
…you have to join us in bold determination which is so necessary and urgent:
We Refuse to Accept This System’s Future — Now Is the Time to Get Organized for a Real Revolution
We Refuse to Accept This System’s Future!
A Better World Without Oppression and Exploitation IS Possible
No to U.S./NATO War with Russia! Stop U.S. Threats Against China! No World War 3!
It’s This System, Not Humanity, That Needs to Become Extinct!
Now Is the Time to Get Organized for a Real Revolution, Nothing Less!
Revolutionary Communist Group, Colombia