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Brief Introduction:

The following article by Bob Avakian was originally published in 1987. We are republishing it now, because it remains highly relevant in terms of understanding the basic nature of this system we live under—the system of capitalism-imperialism—and the role of the U.S. Constitution as the legal and political basis for this system of ruthless exploitation, murderous oppression and massive destruction. In this republished version, Bob Avakian has provided some Added Notes at the end of the article, to further clarify important points.

* * * * *

James Madison, who was the main author of the Constitution of the United States, was also an upholder of slavery and the interests of the slaveowners in the United States. Madison, the fourth president of the United States, not only wrote strongly in defense of the Constitution, he also strongly defended the part of the Constitution that declared the slaves to be only three-fifths human beings (that provided for the slaves to be counted this way for the purposes of deciding on representation and taxation of the states—Article I, Section 2, 3 of the Constitution).

In writing this defense, Madison praised "the compromising expedient of the Constitution" which treats the slaves as "inhabitants, but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants; which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man." Madison explained: "The true state of the case is that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property.... This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied that these are the proper criterion." Madison got to the heart of the matter, the essence of what the U.S. Constitution is all about, when in the course of upholding the decision to treat slaves as three-fifths human beings he agrees with the following principle: "Government is instituted no less for protection of the property than of the persons of individuals."¹ Property rights—that is the basis on which outright slavery as well as other forms of exploitation, discrimination, and oppression have been consistently upheld. And over the 200 years that this Constitution has been in force, down to today, despite the formal rights of persons it proclaims, and even though the Constitution has been amended to outlaw slavery where one person actually owns another as property, the U.S. Constitution has always remained a document that upholds and gives legal authority to a system in which the masses of people, or their ability to work, have been used as wealth-creating property for the profit of the few.

The abolition of slavery through the Civil War meant the elimination of one form of exploitation and the further development and extension of other forms of exploitation. As I wrote in Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That?, "despite the efforts of abolitionists and the resistance and revolts of the slaves themselves—and their heroic fighting in the Civil War itself—it was not fought by the Union government in the North, and its president, Lincoln, for the purpose of abolishing the atrocity of slavery in some moral sense.... The Civil War arose out of the conflict between two modes of production, the slave system in the South and the capitalist system centered in the North; this erupted into open antagonism, warfare, when it was no longer possible for these two modes of production to co-exist within the same country."² The victory of the North over the South in the U.S. Civil War represented the victory of the capitalist system over the slave system. It represented the triumph of the capitalist form of using people as a means of creating wealth. Under a system of outright slavery, the slave is literally the property of the slaveowner. Under capitalism, slavery becomes wage-slavery: The exploited class of workers is not owned by the exploiting class of capitalists (the owners of factories, land, etc.), but the workers are in a position where they must sell their ability to work to a capitalist in order to earn a wage. Capitalism needs a mass of workers that is "free," in a two-fold sense: They must be "free" of all means to live (all means of production), except their ability to work; and they must not be bound to a particular owner, a particular site, a particular guild, etc.—they must be "free" to do whatever work is demanded of them, they must be "free" to move from place to place, and "free" to be hired and fired according to the needs of capital! If they cannot enrich a capitalist through working, then the workers cannot work, they cannot earn a wage. But even if they cannot find a capitalist to exploit their labor, even if they are unemployed, they still remain under the domination of the capitalist class and of the process of capitalist accumulation of wealth—the proletarians (the workers) are dependent on the capitalist class and the capitalist system for their very lives, so long as the capitalist system rules. It is this rule, this system of exploitation, that the U.S. Constitution has upheld and enforced, all the more so after outright slavery was abolished through the Civil War.

But here is another very important fact: In the concrete conditions of the U.S. coming out of the Civil War, and for some time afterward, wage-slavery was not the only major form of exploitation in force in the U.S. Up until very recently (until the 1950s), millions of Black people were exploited like serfs on Southern plantations, working as sharecroppers and tenant farmers to enrich big landowners (and bankers and other capitalists). A whole system of laws—commonly known as Jim Crow laws—were enforced to maintain this relationship of exploitation and oppression: Black people throughout the South—and really throughout the whole country—were subjected to the open discrimination, brutality, and terror that such laws allowed and encouraged. All this, too, was upheld and enforced by the Constitution and its interpretation and application by the highest political and legal authorities in the U.S. And, over the past several decades, when the great majority of Black people have been uprooted from the land in the South and have moved into the cities of the North (and South), they have still been discriminated against, forcibly segregated, and continually subjected to brutality and terror even while some formal civil rights have been extended to them.

Once again, this is in accordance with the interests of the ruling capitalist class and capitalist system. It is consistent with the principle enunciated by James Madison: Governments must protect the property no less than the persons of individuals. In fact, what Madison obviously meant—and what the reality of the U.S. has clearly been—is that the government must protect the property of white people, especially the wealthy white people, more than the rights of Black people. It must never be forgotten that for most of their history in what is now the United States of America Black people were the property of white people, particularly wealthy plantation owners. Even after this outright slavery was abolished, Black people have never been allowed to achieve equality with whites: they have been held down, maintained as an oppressed nation, and denied the right of self-determination. Capitalism cannot exist without the oppression of nations, and this is all the more so when capitalism develops into its highest stage: monopoly capitalism-imperialism. If the history of the United States has demonstrated anything, it has demonstrated this.

The Heritage They Won’t Renounce

The ruling class of the U.S. today—above all the U.S. imperialists, the large-scale capitalists and international exploiters who dominate the U.S. and most of the world—are indeed, as they proclaim, the direct and worthy descendants of their “Founding Fathers.” And this is why the ruling class and its political representatives, while they feel obliged to say that they are opposed to slavery today (at least in the U.S. itself), solemnly praise and celebrate slave owners and upholders of slavery who were so prominent among the “Founding Fathers” and played so central a part in the establishment of the system in the U.S.: men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

These imperialists will never admit that their “Founding Fathers” established a system of government that, in its very foundation, is based on oppression and exploitation. They will never admit that their Constitution is the legal instrument for enforcing that exploitation and oppression. They cannot admit this, any more than they can admit their much-vaunted wealth and power has been established and built up by stealing land and resources from the native peoples (and Mexico) through extortion and outright murderous means; by trading in human flesh and harnessing human beings in slave labor; by pitilessly exploiting immigrants in their millions as wage-slaves; by robbing and plundering throughout the world, particularly Latin America, Africa, and Asia (what today is generally called the Third World). They cannot acknowledge that, while the forms of slavery have changed, the U.S. has, from the beginning and down to today, remained a society where enslavement, in one form or another, has been at the very heart of the economic system and the very basis of the political structure.

There are many (including even Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall) who argue that, because of the upholding of slavery in the Constitution—and other injustices, such as excluding women from voting, and the treatment of the Indians—the Constitution was not such a great document when it was written, but it has been made great through the history of the U.S. and the struggles to create a more perfect Union and a more perfect Constitution. In other words, the Constitution may have had defects in some important ways when it was originally conceived, but the miracle of it is that the Constitution has within it provisions for changing and improving it—for extending democracy and rights to those previously excluded. And, some will add, while the Constitution upholds property rights, it also upholds individual and civil rights (even the statement from Madison cited at the beginning of this article stresses that, some might argue). Let’s look more deeply at these questions.

Extension of the Constitution … Extension of Bourgeois Domination

The extension of constitutional rights and protections to those previously excluded from them has gone together, in an overall way, with the extension of bourgeois (capitalist) relations and their dominance throughout the U.S. And, at the same time, it has gone hand-in-hand with the continuation of the oppression of Black people, of Native Americans, of Latinos and immigrants from Latin America (and elsewhere), of the oppression of women, and other forms of oppression and exploitation. All this is not in contradiction to but is consistent with the fundamental principles on which the Constitution is based and the way in which it treats the relationship between the rights of property and the rights of individuals.^*

It is noteworthy that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (echoing the 5th Amendment) has as its pivotal point the provision that no State may “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” Especially in the period since World War 2, this amendment has been used as a major part of the basis to extend civil rights for Black people, for women, and for others discriminated against. Yet this amendment was passed right after the Civil War, in 1866; and for many decades this amendment was not used to combat racial or sexual discrimination. Instead, “For many years the Supreme Court applied the due-process clause mainly to protect business interests against state regulatory legislation.”³ It was only beginning after World War 1, and more fully after World War 2, that the 14th Amendment was applied in a significant way to the questions of racial and sexual discrimination. Thus, “in a long series of cases” beginning in 1925, the Supreme Court “gradually expanded its definition of due process so as to include most of the guarantees of personal liberties in the Federal Bill of Rights and has protected them from state impairment. A similar development occurred with respect to the equal-protection clause.”⁴ These changes in Supreme Court decisions were part of larger changes in ruling-class policy. But these resulted not from some brilliant new legal insight, nor from some sudden flash of moral awakening within the ruling class. Rather, they resulted from the changed situation of Black people in U.S. society and, more decisively, from the situation and needs of the ruling imperialists.

As noted earlier, the masses of Black people have undergone a dramatic change in their particular conditions of existence—and of oppression—in the U.S. This began during and immediately after World War 1 but developed fully during and after World War 2. Demand for labor in war production and other strategic industry, followed after World War 2 by sweeping changes in Southern agriculture—called forth by technological changes and international economic competition—drove millions and millions of Black people from the rural South to the urban ghettos of the North and South, and into the most exploited sections of the proletariat. At the same time, the U.S. imperialists emerged not only victorious but greatly strengthened from world war that devastated those countries which were much more directly and centrally involved. So, after World War 2 U.S. imperialism was everywhere, scooping up the former colonial possessions of the prior colonial powers and establishing U.S. neocolonial domination in the name of freedom and (usually) in the guise of allowing formal independence. In this situation, it was not so necessary—nor was it so helpful—to openly and blatantly treat Black people as “second-class citizens” in the U.S. itself. So, over the period of the next several decades, concessions were made to civil rights demands and struggles at the same time as deception, vicious repression, and the promotion of “loyal and responsible Negro leaders” were carried out to keep things firmly under the control of the ruling class and in the service of its larger interests. Similarly, recent decades have seen political and legal changes that have brought certain extensions of formal rights to women and certain concessions to their battle against oppression. These have corresponded to significant changes in society and the world, including the fact that in only a small percentage of U.S. families is it any longer the case that the family is supported by just the man working. But, again, these concessions have been confined within limits that fundamentally conform to the interests and needs of the ruling class in the face of changing conditions in the U.S. and the world.

Would anyone dare say that, because of these changes and concessions, inequality and injustice have been eliminated in the U.S.? The fact is, none of this has in any way eliminated, or come close to eliminating, discrimination against Black people, their overall conditions of oppression, their status as an oppressed nation. Nor have the ruling imperialists ceased to oppress the Native Americans—they have never even stopped trying to cheat and rob them of valuable land and resources. Nor have these imperialists ceased to discriminate against and viciously exploit other national minorities and immigrants. Nor, despite the constitutional amendment (the 19th, in 1919) giving them the right to vote and other concessions to “women’s rights,” have women been granted equality—there has been no end to the subjugation and degradation they have been subjected to: The oppression of women remains a foundation stone of U.S. society, as indeed it must so long as a system of class domination and exploitation is in force. Today, 200 years after the U.S. Constitution first took effect, and after all the changes and amendments, no one can seriously and reasonably argue that the various kinds of oppression that I have spoken to here do not exist or are only a minor aspect of the situation. No one can seriously and reasonably argue that they are not a basic and deeply rooted feature of American society.

The reason for this is rooted in the very reality and nature of the economic system in the U.S. and the political system that upholds and enforces this economic system, including the Constitution as the legal “cement” of the political structure. The fundamental reason why the “extension” of constitutional rights to those previously excluded from them has not put an end to exploitation, inequality, and oppression is this: The essence of the capitalist economic system is not the competition of commodity owners, all vying equally in the marketplace (equal opportunity for all). The essence is the exploitation of labor as wage-labor, the command by capital over labor power (the ability to do work) as a commodity—a unique commodity—that creates wealth through its use.^** (As a dockworker told me years ago: No one gets rich working; the only way to get rich is by making other people work for you.) And the essence of the political structure that goes along with and protects this capitalist economic system is not freedom and democracy for all, regardless of wealth and social position. The essence is the dictatorship of the bourgeois class—its monopoly of political power and armed force—over those it dominates in the economic system, especially the proletariat. Thus, the right to vote and other formal rights for the proletariat and other oppressed masses are in no way in fundamental opposition to the economic and political system of capitalism and bourgeois dictatorship.

Bourgeois Democracy—Bourgeois Dictatorship

Bourgeois democracy presents itself as classless democracy: It proclaims equality for all. Thus, the U.S. Constitution does not say that different classes of people shall have unequal wealth and power; rather, it sets forth a charter that appears to treat everyone the same, regardless of wealth and social status. Yet there never has been, and never could be, a capitalist society without tremendous differences in wealth and power, without fundamental class divisions and antagonisms. In fact, a capitalist society without these things is not even conceivable. And in reality, democracy in capitalist society can only be bourgeois democracy. This means there is democracy—equal political rights and the power to make fundamental decisions—only among the capitalist class, the ruling class. For the rest, and for the proletariat especially, bourgeois democracy means dictatorship: It means being ruled over by the capitalists, even while being allowed to vote and even while being governed by a Constitution that sets forth laws that are said to be applied, equally, to all. How can this be?

First, as for voting, as I pointed out in Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That?:

On the most obvious level, to be a serious candidate for any major office in a country like the U.S. requires millions of dollars—a personal fortune or, more often, the backing of people with that kind of money. Beyond that, to become known and be taken seriously depends on favorable exposure in the mass media (favorable at least in the sense that you are presented as within the framework of responsible—that is, acceptable politics)…. By the time “the people express their will through voting,” both the candidates they have to choose among and the “issues” that deserve “serious consideration” have been selected out by someone else: the ruling class….

Further, and even more fundamentally, to “get anywhere” once elected—both to advance one’s own career and to “get anything done”—it is necessary to fit into the established mold and work within the established structures.⁵

But that is not all:

If, however, the electoral process in bourgeois society does not represent the exercise of sovereignty by the people, it generally does play an important role in maintaining the sovereignty—the dictatorship—of the bourgeoisie and the continuation of capitalist society. This very electoral process itself tends to cover over the basic class relations—and class antagonisms—in society, and serves to give formal, institutionalized expression to the political participation of atomized individuals in the perpetuation of the status quo. This process not only reduces people to isolated individuals but at the same time reduces them to a passive position politically and defines the essence of politics as such atomized passivity—as each person, individually, in isolation from everyone else, giving his/her approval to this or to that option, all of which options have been formulated and presented by an active power standing above these atomized masses of “citizens.”… [T]he very acceptance of the electoral process as the quintessential political act reinforces acceptance of the established order and works against any radical rupture with, to say nothing of the actual overturning of, that order.⁶

And let us remember that one of the main reasons for which the U.S. Constitution was “ordained and established,” as proclaimed in its “Preamble,” was to prevent social upheaval and the overturning of the order upheld by that Constitution—to “insure domestic tranquility.”

The same can be said of the other aspects of bourgeois democracy and the kind of rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution (including its “Bill of Rights”): They have the purpose and function of reinforcing the rule of the bourgeoisie and keeping political activity within limits acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Thus, “the much-vaunted freedom of expression in the ‘democratic countries’ is not in opposition to but is encompassed by and confined within the actual exercise of dictatorship by the bourgeoisie. This is for two basic reasons—because the ruling class has a monopoly on the means of molding public opinion and because its monopoly of armed force puts it in a position to suppress, as violently as necessary, any expression of ideas, as well as any action, that poses a serious challenge to the established order.”⁷ The history of the U.S., like the history of all other “democratic” bourgeois dictatorships, is full of graphic illustrations of just how true the above-quoted statement is!

Formal equality—the treatment of all persons as equal, and specifically as “equal before the law,” without regard to wealth or social position—in bourgeois society actually covers over the relationship of complete subordination, exploitation, and oppression to which the proletariat and masses of people are subjected. If a small group—the capitalist class—controls the important means of creating wealth, then in reality they have the power of life and death over those who control little or none of these. To have such power over other people is, in essence, to hold them in an enslaved condition, whether or not the chains are literal and visible. In such a situation—which is the fundamental condition of capitalist society—how can there be anything but profound inequality economically, socially, and politically? And with such a fundamental division, with such fundamental inequality, there can never be anything but exploitation, oppression, domination, and dictatorship.

With regard to the law, this will manifest itself in two main ways. First, those who dominate society economically will dominate in deciding, through the political structure, what the laws will be. They will insure that the laws serve their interests. And second, the actual application and enforcement of the law will discriminate in favor of those with wealth and power and against those without them—and even more so against oppressed nationalities, women, and others who are “the last of the last” in society. Everyday life in any capitalist society proves this over and over. Thus, once again, as with the right to vote and other constitutional rights in a bourgeois-democratic republic, formal equality before the law expresses itself, in reality, as profound inequality—and more—as something confined within and conforming to bourgeois domination and dictatorship.

The basic difference between the bourgeoisie’s view of freedom and democracy on the one hand, and the striving of oppressed masses for an end to oppressive conditions on the other hand, is sharply drawn in recent events in Haiti, the Philippines, and South Korea. The oppressed masses (and students and other revolutionary intellectuals) want some kind of fundamental change in the social system and a breaking of the chains of imperialist domination in their countries. But the bourgeois opposition leaders and parties want only the recognition of bourgeois-democratic provisions and procedures—with elections the highest expression of political activity. Most of all, they want the sharing of power more broadly and “equally” among the upper classes—really, they want their chance to hold the reins of power—while leaving the social system and imperialist domination intact. As for the imperialists, where they become convinced of the need for change in such situations, they make every effort to keep it confined within the framework of imperialist domination and bourgeois rule. Indeed, they try to use such situations to strengthen and perhaps “refine” the apparatus of bourgeois politics—and, above all, of repression—in the countries involved.

This brings us to a most fundamental point that is so often ignored or glossed over in discussions and debates about democracy in countries like the U.S.: The fact is that even the extent to which rights are allowed to the nonruling classes in imperialist countries depends on a situation where, in large parts of the world under imperialist domination, the masses of people are subjected to much more open and murderous repression. In short,

The platform of democracy in the imperialist countries (worm-eaten as it is) rests on fascist terror in the oppressed nations: the real guarantors of bourgeois democracy in the U.S. are not the constitutional scholar and the Supreme Court justice, but the Brazilian torturer, the South African cop, and the Israeli pilot; the true defenders of the democratic tradition are not on the portraits in the halls of the Western capitols, but are Marcos, Mobutu, and the dozens of generals from Turkey to Taiwan, from South Korea to South America, all put and maintained in power and backed up by the military force of the U.S. and its imperialist partners.⁸,^***

But, at the same time, the imperialist rulers and ardent worshippers of bourgeois democracy go to great lengths to try to cover over, or explain away, the brutal repression “at home” that is so essential to the functioning of the system and the maintenance of the established order:

For there is vicious repression and state terror carried out continually—and not only in times of serious crisis or social upheaval—in the imperialist countries; it is carried out specifically against those who do not support but oppose the established order, or who simply cannot be counted on to be pacified by the normal workings of the imperialist system—those whose conditions are desperate and whose life situation is explosive anyway.

In the U.S. the hundreds of police shootings of oppressed people, particularly Blacks and other minority nationalities, every year; the fact that jails are overwhelmingly filled with poor people, the greatest number again being Black and other minority nationalities—it is an amazing but true statistic that one out of every thirteen Black people in the U.S. will be arrested each year (and Blacks are incarcerated eight and one-half times as frequently as whites)!—and the widespread use of drugs, surgical techniques, and other means to repress and terrorize prisoners (as well as an astounding number of people not in jail, including allegedly recalcitrant children); the use of welfare and other so-called social service agencies to harass and control poor people down to the most intimate details of their personal lives; this, and much more, is part of the daily life experience of millions of people in the major imperialist countries. Along with all this, of course, is the use of the state apparatus for direct political repression….

In times of severe crisis and social strain, of course, all this is carried out more intensively and extensively…. Already, right now in the U.S., to cite one important aspect of this, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, “illegal” and “legal,” are being subjected to a campaign of terror—including raids at their places of work and homes, the sudden and forcible separation of parents from children, and the deportation of large numbers of refugees back to the waiting arms of death squads and other government assassins in countries like El Salvador. The same kind of thing is also being directed against immigrants in France, West Germany, England, and other imperialist democracies.

Through all this, while overt political repression by the state is in one sense the clearest indication of the class content of democracy—in the imperialist countries as well as elsewhere—in another sense the daily, and often seemingly arbitrary, terror carried out against the lower strata in these imperialist countries concentrates the connection between the normal workings of the system and the political (that is, class) nature of the state.⁹

A New and Far Greater Vision of Freedom

In the course of this article so far, in speaking to some essential questions concerning the U.S. Constitution and the system it upholds, I have answered some of the main arguments made in defense of this Constitution and this system, including the argument that the Constitution, if not perfect, is perfectible—that it can be continually improved and the rights it establishes can be extended to those previously excluded. Before concluding, I want to briefly address some of the other main arguments made on behalf of—or in defense of—this Constitution and the principles and vision it embodies.

“This Constitution establishes a law of the land that is applicable to all—it establishes a government of laws, not of people.” This is closely linked to the principle of “equality before the law.” What is meant by “a government of laws, not of people” is that no one is “above the law” and that what is allowed and what is forbidden are set forth before all, in one set of regulations binding on everyone, and this can be changed only through the procedures established for making such changes. A “government of people” refers to a notion of a government where it is the will and the word of certain people—a king, a despot, a small group of tyrants, etc.—that determine what is allowed and what is forbidden, and where this can and will change according to the dictates and the whims of such rulers: There is no common and clearly spelled-out standard binding on all, even on the political leaders and the powerful and influential in society.

Like all principles of bourgeois democracy, this notion of “a government of laws, not of people” misses and obscures the essential question. First of all,

“the rule of law” can be part of a dictatorship, of one kind or another, and in the most general sense it always is—even where it may appear that power is exercised without or above the law, laws (in the sense of a systematized code that people in society are obliged to conform to, whether written or unwritten) will still exist and play a part in enforcing the rule of the dominant class. Conversely, all states, all dictatorships, include laws in one form or another.¹⁰

Most fundamentally, the question is: What is the character and the class content of the laws, what system do they uphold and enforce, which class interests do they represent—of which class dictatorship, bourgeois or proletarian, are they the expression and instrument—and toward what end are they contributing—the maintenance of class division and domination, exploitation and oppression, or the final elimination of class divisions, of all oppressive social divisions, and of social antagonisms? In short, the essential question is not “a government of laws vs. a government of people,” it is which people—which class—rules, and what laws are in force, in the service of what ends?

“‘We The People,’ that is the heart of this Constitution and the genius of this Constitution: It establishes a government of, by and for all the people.” As a matter of historical fact, this opening phrase of the Constitution, “We the people of the United States,” was not the product of some lofty desire by the “framers” of the Constitution to set forth some universal principle of popular sovereignty. It was the product of their desire to overcome the problem of States posing their own sovereignty against that of the Federal Government—and the desire to avoid the specific problem of not knowing which States would ratify the Constitution: “The Preamble of the Articles of Confederation had named all the states in order from north to south. How was the [Constitutional] Convention to enumerate the participating states without knowing which would ratify? In a brilliant flash of inspiration, the Convention began with the words, ‘We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution….’”¹¹

More importantly, the larger historical context and the actual content of this proclamation—“We The People”—must be made clear. The founding of the United States of America as an independent country represented not just the breaking away from domination by a foreign power. It also meant breaking away from a form of government that vested great power in the person of the monarchy—even while it ultimately served the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landed “nobility.” In general, the rights and the restrictions of power established in the Constitution of the newly founded United States revolved around preventing arbitrary rule by despots and the concentration of too much power in one person or one part of the government. The “separation of powers” and the “checks and balances” of different branches of government was seen as a way of insuring that the government would serve the interests of the capitalist class and (at that time) the slaveowners as a whole. It is in this light that “We the people of the United States,” in the “Preamble” of the Constitution, must be understood. Obviously, “We the people of the United States” did not include all those who were expressly excluded from the process of selecting the government and endorsing the Constitution. For, “Even on the most obvious level, how could the government of the newly formed United States, for example, be considered to have derived its powers ‘from the consent of the governed’ when, at the time of the formation of the United States of America, a majority of the people ‘governed’—included slaves, Indians, women, men who did not meet various property requirements, and others—did not even have the right to vote…to say nothing of the real power to govern and determine the direction of society?”¹²

Bourgeois ruling classes generally speak in the name of the people, all the people. From their standpoint, it may make a certain amount of sense: They do, after all, rule over the masses of people. But from a more basic and more objective standpoint, their claim to represent all the people is a deception. If it was a deception at the time of the founding of the United States and the adoption of its Constitution, it is all the more so now. For now the rule of the capitalists is in fundamental antagonism with the interests of the great majority of people, not just in a particular country, but all over the world. Now the decisive question is not overcoming economic and political obstacles to the development of capitalism and its corresponding political system. The time when that was on the historical agenda is long since passed. What is now on the historical agenda is the overthrow of capitalism and the final elimination of all systems of exploitation, all oppressive social relations, all class distinctions, through the revolution of the exploited class under capitalism, the proletariat.

To get a very stark sense of just how historically conditioned—how long since outmoded and completely reactionary—are the interests and the paramount concerns of the "Founding Fathers" and their descendants, the ruling imperialists of today, let us consider the fact that, in writing their Constitution, Madison and others "For theoretical inspiration...leaned heavily on Locke and on Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. Both writers had insisted on the need for separation of powers in order to prevent tyranny; in Montesquieu's view even the representatives of the people in the legislature could not be trusted with unlimited power."¹³ In reading over Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws I could not help but be struck by how thoroughly his frame of reference is that of a bygone age and his outlook that of exploiting classes whose period of historical ascendancy is long since past. As a glaring illustration, consider the following:

If I had to justify our right to enslave Negroes, this is what I would say: Since the peoples of Europe have exterminated those of America, they have had to enslave those of Africa in order to use them to clear and cultivate such a vast expanse of land.

Sugar would be too expensive if it weren't harvested by slaves.

Those in question are black from the tip of their toes to the top of their heads; and their noses so flattened that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them.

It is inconceivable that God, who is a very wise being, could have placed a soul, especially a good soul, in an all-black body....

One proof of the fact that Negroes don't have any common sense is that they get more excited about a string of glass beads than about gold, which, in civilized countries, is so dearly prized.

It is impossible that these people are men; because if we thought of them as men, one would begin to think that we ourselves are not Christians.¹⁴,^****

Let the "Founding Fathers" and their descendants draw theoretical inspiration from the likes of Montesquieu! Let them defend slavery and modern-day exploitation on the ground of property rights, taking their lead from the likes of James Madison, the main author of the Constitution. As for the proletariat, our goal is "Marx's view of the complete abolition of bourgeois property relations—and all relations in which human beings confront each other as owners (or non-owners) of property rather than through conscious and voluntary association."¹⁵

For the exploiting classes, and in a system under their rule, the "bottom line" is to reduce the masses of people to mere wealth-creating property—and today, under the domination of the imperialists, the greatest of all exploiters, the mass of humanity is treated as merely a means to amass even greater wealth and power in the hands of, and for the profit of, so few. And at what cost! This cost must be measured in massive human suffering, degradation, and destruction. Imagine the even greater cost in human suffering, degradation, and destruction that will have to be paid unless and until the oppressed and exploited victims of this system, who are the great majority of humanity, rise up and overthrow this system and finally put an end to all social relations of exploitation and oppression.

In conclusion, The Constitution of the United States is an exploiters' vision of freedom. It is a charter for a society based on exploitation, on slavery in one form or another. The rights and freedoms it proclaims are subordinate to and in the service of the system of exploitation it upholds. This Constitution has been and continues to be applied in accordance with this vision and with the interests of the ruling class of this system: In its application it has become more and more fully the instrument of bourgeois domination, dictatorship, oppression, conquest, and plunder.

Our answer is clear to those who argue: Even if The Constitution of the United States is not perfect, it is the best that has been devised—it sets a standard to be striven for. Our answer is: Why should we aim so low, when we have The Communist Manifesto to set a far higher standard of what humanity can strive for—and is capable of achieving—a far greater vision of freedom.^*****

NOTES

1. Quotes from James Madison are from the Federalist Paper No. 54 in The Federalist Papers (New York: New American Library, 1961), pp. 336-341, especially pp. 339 and 337. [back]

2. Bob Avakian, Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That? (Chicago: Banner Press, 1986), pp. 110-11. [back]

3. Edward Conrad Smith, editor, The Constitution of the United States with Case Summaries (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1979), p. 18. All citations in this article are from the essay “The Origins of the Constitution.” [back]

4. Ibid., pp. 18-19. [back]

5. Avakian, Democracy, p. 69. [back]

6. Ibid, p. 70. [back]

7. Ibid, p. 71. [back]

8. Lenny Wolff, The Science of Revolution: An Introduction (Chicago: RCP Publications, 1983), p. 184. [back]

9. Avakian, Democracy, pp. 137-39. [back]

10. Ibid., pp. 233-34. [back]

11. Smith, Constitution of the U.S., p. 12. [back]

12. Avakian, Democracy, p. 100. [back]

13. Smith, Constitution of the U.S., p. 13. [back]

14. Charles Montesquieu, De L'Esprit Des Lois, Paris: Garnier, 1927, livre 15, chapitre 5, "De L'Esclavage Des Negres" (The Spirit of the Laws, book 15, chapter 5, "On the Enslavement of Negroes"), my translation. [back]

15. Avakian, Democracy, p. 212. [back]

Added Notes by the Author, Spring 2023

* A major factor underlying this “extension of constitutional rights and protections to those previously excluded from them” has—especially since the second half of the 20th century—been the increasing globalization of the capitalist-imperialist economy, a worldwide system of exploitation ensnaring literally billions of people, and in particular super-exploitation of masses of people, including more than 150 million children, in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The relationship of this worldwide exploitation, and super-exploitation, to the situation in the U.S. itself—particularly with regard to the economic structure and social and class relations within this country—is analyzed in depth in the paper by Raymond Lotta Imperialist Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today: An Exploration of Trends and Changes, which is available at revcom.us. The political dimensions of this are explored in my article Imperialist Parasitism and “Democracy”: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of “Their” Imperialism (also available at revcom.us), where the following is made clear:

[T]his imperialist plunder provides the material basis for a certain stability, at least in “normal times” in the imperialist “home country” (with the U.S. a prime example of this). This relative stability, in turn, makes it possible for the ruling class to allow a certain amount of dissent and political protest—so long as this remains within the confines of, or at least does not significantly threaten, the “law and order” that serves and enforces the fundamental interests of this ruling class.

At the same time, as sharply demonstrated in mass uprisings which do call into question that “law and order” and/or defy allegiance to the imperialist interests of this system—such as the mass outpouring against police terror in 2020, and urban rebellions and mass opposition to the Vietnam war in the 1960s—the rulers of this country will frequently respond to such opposition with severe repression and murderous retribution.  For example, the city of Wilmington, in Biden’s home state of Delaware, was placed under martial law for months during the 1960s upsurge against the oppression of Black people, and a number of members of the Black Panther Party, most prominently Fred Hampton, were murdered by police, along with many Black people taking part in urban uprisings in that period, while militant mass resistance against the Vietnam war and rebellions among middle class youth and students were in some cases subjected to a vicious, and at times murderous, response by police and National Guard troops.

It should never be forgotten, or overlooked, that the “law and order” that enforces this relative stability has included the regular murder of Black people, as well as Latinos, by police—resulting in the fact that the number of Black people who have been killed by police in the years since 1960 is greater than the thousands of Black people who were lynched during the period of Jim Crow segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror, before the 1960s. It should also not be overlooked that the U.S. has the highest rate of mass incarceration of any country in the world, with Black people and Latinos particularly subjected to this mass incarceration. [back]

** The point here, as emphasized in my work Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary, is that the essence of the capitalist economy, and the source of capitalist “wealth” and “economic growth,” is not a bunch of capitalist entrepreneurs and their “innovation,” or their “entrepreneurial genius.” It is the exploitation by the capitalists (the bourgeoisie) of wage-workers (the proletariat). This is different than the question of what is the driving force compelling the capitalists to continue to intensify the exploitation of the proletariat and to continually find new means of doing so. As also pointed out in Breakthroughs:

Engels, in Anti-Dühring, discussed the motion of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism between socialized production and private appropriation. He pointed out that the working out of this contradiction assumes two different forms of motion that go into the dynamic process of this fundamental contradiction’s motion. Those two forms of motion are, on the one hand, the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that it exploits, and the other form of motion that Engels identified, importantly, is the contradiction between organization and anarchy, the organization of production on the level of, say, an enterprise—which may be highly organized, with lots of calculations going into it, market estimates and all kinds of things, and may be very tightly organized in terms of how the actual process of production is carried out on the level of the particular capitalist corporation, and so on—while, at the same time, this is in contradiction to the anarchy of production and of exchange in the society as a whole (or today in the world as a whole, today more than ever in the world as a whole). So you have these two forms of motion—and I’ll come back later to a crucial distinguishing aspect of the new communism: the importance of identifying the second form of motion of this fundamental contradiction, that is, the anarchy/organization contradiction, or the driving force of anarchy, as overall the principal and most essential form of the motion of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism....

In this regard, in the article “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change,” Raymond Lotta cited this statement of mine:

It is the anarchy of capitalist production which is, in fact, the driving or motive force of this process [of capitalist production], even though the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is an integral part of the contradiction between socialized production and private appropriation. While the exploitation of labor-power is the form by and through which surplus value is created and appropriated, it is the anarchic relations between capitalist producers, and not the mere existence of propertyless proletarians or the class contradiction as such, that drives these producers to exploit the working class on an historically more intensive and extensive scale. This motive force of anarchy is an expression of the fact that the capitalist mode of production represents the full development of commodity production and the law of value.

And then there is this very important passage:

Were it not the case that these capitalist commodity producers are separated from each other and yet linked by the operation of the law of value they would not face the same compulsion to exploit the proletariat—the class contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat could be mitigated. It is the inner compulsion of capital to expand which accounts for the historically unprecedented dynamism of this mode of production, a process which continually transforms value relations and which leads to crisis.

(Breakthroughs is available at revcom.us; and the article by Raymond Lotta referred to here, “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change,” can be found in the online theoretical journal Demarcations, Issue Number 3.) [back]

*** As noted in “Imperialist Parasitism and ‘Democracy’: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of ‘Their’ Imperialism”:

Some of the mass murderers in other countries who today play such a crucial role in serving the interests of U.S. imperialism throughout the world, and in making possible the maintenance of bourgeois democracy in this country itself (worm-eaten as it is indeed), are the same as they were 40 years ago, and some are different—but the essential reality remains that the “platform of democracy” in this country rests on fascist terror, along with ruthless exploitation, in the oppressed nations of the Third World (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia). [back]

**** In relation to this statement by Montesquieu—and more generally his views on slavery—I am reproducing here the following “A Note from Bob Avakian: On Montesquieu, Slavery and the U.S. Constitution,” which appeared in Revolution #037, March 5, 2006, posted at revcom.us:

Recently, Revolution ran an excerpt from a pamphlet I wrote, which was originally published in 1987, U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom. In that excerpt, there is a quote from De L'Esprit Des Lois (or, in English, "The Spirit of the Laws") by Charles Montesquieu, an 18th–century French philosopher, who was one of the sources of inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, and in particular the theory of the separation of powers that is incorporated in that Constitution. The quote from this work of Montesquieu's, which was published in 1748, is one in which he recites an extreme and grotesquely racist justification for "the enslavement of the Negroes." In relation to this, it is not infrequently argued that Montesquieu was being ironic here, and deliberately overstating this argument, in order to, in effect, polemicize against the enslavement of African people, and that in general Montesquieu's writings express opposition to slavery. But the reality is not so simple as this, nor does this reflect what Montesquieu was essentially seeking to do in this part of "The Spirit of the Laws." It can be said that in "The Spirit of the Laws" Montesquieu's position is one of general opposition to slavery, and he indicates that slavery is not appropriate in countries like France; but, at the same time, he speaks to various circumstances in which he believes slavery can be justified or reasonable. For example, he argues that in the parts of the world, in particular the southern regions, where the climate is warmer, this climate makes people lazy (indolent), and slavery may be justified in order to get them to work (and he argues that in a despotic country, where people's political rights are already repressed, slavery may not be worse for people in that condition).

This, and the general discussion of slavery that makes up this part (book 15) of "The Spirit of the Laws," is included in a broader discussion by Montesquieu on the nature of different societies and governments in different countries and parts of the world (this is found not only in book 15 but also books 14 and 16 of "The Spirit of the Laws") in which Montesquieu argues that geography and in particular climate plays a big part in determining the nature of different peoples and the character of their society and governing system. And it is important to understand that, although in this discussion Montesquieu makes logical refutation of certain arguments, including certain defenses of slavery, this is not a polemic for or against slavery, or other forms of government, and its character is not that of moral argumentation, so much as it is an attempt to explain why various practices, and various forms of society and government, have existed (and in some cases continue to exist) in various places.

Another way to put this is that what Montesquieu is doing, in these parts of "The Spirit of the Laws" (and generally in this work), is attempting to make a kind of materialist analysis of these phenomena, including slavery in many places where it has existed—although it must be emphasized that this is not a thoroughly scientific, dialectical materialism but instead a rather crude and vulgar materialism which is marked, and marred, by a considerable amount of determinism: it is a kind of mechanical materialism that argues for a direct and straight-line (linear) connection between things like geography and climate and the character of society and government. It is a kind of materialism that does not adequately and accurately characterize the real motive forces in the development of human society, and in fact this kind of vulgar materialism has often been used to justify various forms of oppression, including colonial and imperialist domination. While we can, and should, recognize that, in the circumstances and time in which he wrote—about 250 years ago—there are aspects of what Montesquieu was seeking to do that were new and represented a break with the suffocating and obfuscating feudal outlook and conventions, it is very important to understand how Montesquieu's outlook and method were marked, and limited, by the social, and international, relations of which they were ultimately an expression: relations in which one part of society, and of the world, dominates and exploits others. And that is the basic point that was being emphasized in relation to Montesquieu and the U.S. Constitution, in the pamphlet U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom.

With regard to the specific passage that was cited in U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom, "on the enslavement of the Negroes," there is, in fact, some reason to accept that Montesquieu does not actually agree with the justification for this enslavement that he summarizes, and that he is actually subjecting this kind of justification to some ironic and satirical treatment. A reasonable interpretation of Montesquieu's arguments, as he goes on in this part of "The Spirit of the Laws" (book 15), is that this kind of argument, about the non-human character of the Negroes, is not a valid argument, not one that actually justifies this enslavement. But then he does go on to explore the question of what might actually be reasonable justifications, in certain circumstances, for slavery; and, as spoken to above, he finds such justifications in situations such as those where there is a despotic government, or where—as he concludes, through an application of vulgar and determinist materialism—the warm climate makes people lazy and unwilling, on their own initiative, to work.

Thus, in looking into and reflecting on this further, I would say that, while it is important to understand the complexity and nuance of what Montesquieu writes here—and it can be said that the way in which I cited Montesquieu in writing this pamphlet on the U.S. Constitution does not really or fully do that—it is not the case that what Montesquieu was doing here was actually making a case against the enslavement of the Negroes, or against slavery in general. Once again, it is important to keep in mind the fact that, although he was opposed to slavery on general principle, and declared that it was a good thing that it had been eliminated in his home country, France, and more generally in Europe, Montesquieu did not think slavery was wrong, or without justification, in all circumstances. And it also seems that Montesquieu did not hesitate to invest in companies involved in the slave trade. In this, there is a parallel with John Locke, the English philosopher and political theorist, who, as I pointed out in this same pamphlet (U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom), was also a major influence in the conception of the U.S. Constitution. As I wrote in Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That? (p. 29):

"In sum, the society of which Locke was a theoretical exponent, as well as a practical political partisan, was a society based on wage-slavery and capitalist exploitation. And it is not surprising that, while he was opposed to slavery in England itself, he not only defended the institution of slavery, under certain circumstances, in the Second Treatise, but turned a not insignificant profit himself in the slave trade and helped to draw up the charter for a government headed by a slave-owning aristocracy in one of the American colonies. For as Marx sarcastically summarized: ‘The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.’" [back]

***** In the years since the writing of this article, I have devoted considerable work to the development of what is meant by this “far greater vision of freedom”—what it would mean “in real life.” One very important result of this is the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which provides both a sweeping vision and a concrete blueprint for a radically different and emancipating society and world. This Constitution is available at revcom.us. [back]

Let’s begin with this: In the most fundamental sense, communist revolutions do not come about simply as a result of the revolutionary work and struggle of the communists.

Why am I raising this? To argue that what communists do is unimportant?! No—obviously not. It is of definite and vital importance for communists to work consistently, and struggle vigorously, with determination and creativity, to win masses of people to see the need for and become actively involved in preparing for and then carrying out the overthrow of the oppressive system, in order to bring into being a radically different and emancipating system. (And clearly revolutions could not come about as a result of the revolutionaries carrying out something other than consistent revolutionary work and struggle.)

But revolutions do not proceed in a straight line—and it is crucial to grasp, and act decisively in relation to, those rare times when a profound, qualitative change in the situation opens up the possibility for major advance for revolution, perhaps even the possibility of carrying things all the way to the overthrow of the existing system and the establishment of a radically different and much better system.

This possibility may not be, and generally is not, immediately apparent, and on the contrary what is often more readily seen on the surface is the way in which, in the short term, the situation is worsening.

The point is that all this can only be correctly grasped, and acted on, with a consistently scientific method and approach.

One of the most important things that such a scientific method and approach makes clear is this: Revolutions are made possible, in the most fundamental sense, as a result of the intensification of the contradictions of the oppressive system, leading to crucial turning points, providing rare opportunities for major revolutionary advance, even potentially opening the way for the victory of the revolution. And the prospects for revolution hinge to a great extent on whether the conscious forces for this revolution not only carry out consistent revolutionary work and struggle, but more specifically whether they recognize—and on that basis act boldly and with scientifically grounded determination, to take full advantage of—these crucial turning points and all-too-rare opportunities.

Of course, the role of communists is not to wait around passively for such crucial turning points and rare opportunities. On the contrary—and this is a basic point of orientation in the new communism which I have brought forward—communists must continually work to maximize the development toward, and accumulate forces for, the revolution that is needed: applying the approach of hastening while awaiting the necessary conditions that make it possible to go all out in the fight for revolution, with a real chance to win. And then, when the necessary conditions have come into being, it is of crucial importance to act decisively—to lead masses of people, in their millions, to actually seize power.

But simply going along carrying out “routine” work in the name of revolution, actually lacking any revolutionary orientation and sense of urgency—“tolling the bell” timelessly, like monks in a monastery, paying no attention to the larger developments in the world, and in particular the way the fundamental contradictions of the ruling system are becoming much more acutely posed than in “normal times”—this will result in failure to grasp the potential this opens up for revolutionary advance and will lead to throwing away the rare opportunity.

The successful communist-led revolutions, first in Russia and then in China, during the first half of the last century, illustrate these crucial lessons. (Even though the socialist systems that were established through revolution, first in Russia/the Soviet Union and then in China, were eventually overturned and capitalism restored in both countries, the essential points I have emphasized here are highlighted by the experiences of these revolutions in leading masses of people in overthrowing the oppressive old order and establishing a new, revolutionary society and government.)

Russia: World War 1 as a “Stage Manager” of Revolution

For the Russian revolution, it was World War 1, beginning in 1914, that greatly heightened the contradictions of the capitalist-imperialist system overall and in a particularly acute way within Russia. (This was a war between rival imperialist powers for the dominant position in the world, and in particular the domination and exploitation of vast colonial empires especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.) As this war unfolded over several years, and intensified the contradictions that led to the war, it made the objective basis and possibility for revolution more favorable, although this possibility had to be firmly grasped and actively worked on—and the opportunity to overthrow the old order had to be decisively seized, when that opportunity arose toward the end of this war. 

But it is worth noting that for some time before the start of World War 1, and then during much of that war, the Russian communists (the Bolsheviks) were severely weakened—with their leader Lenin and some other leading figures in exile, desperately hanging on in extremely difficult circumstances (with some comrades living, and even dying, on the streets). This difficult situation was to a large degree the result of the defeat of a revolutionary uprising in Russia in the decade before the start of World War 1 and the severe repression that followed that defeat. In those circumstances, many former supporters, or intellectual sympathizers, of the revolution adopted “philosophical” rationalizations for turning away from Marxism, and more than a few people within the ranks of the Bolsheviks retreated into self-indulgent individualism. Further, for much of World War 1, because the Bolsheviks took and maintained the principled stand of refusing to support their own imperialist ruling class in that war—while exposing and denouncing the war overall as imperialist—they were very unpopular among large sections of the Russian people, who especially at the start of the war were swept up in patriotic fervor in support of Russia’s involvement in the war.

But as the war dragged on, with the Russian ruling class continuing to be actively involved in this war that was causing enormous casualties for the Russian troops and terrible suffering for the masses of people in Russia, the Bolsheviks were able to increasingly win growing numbers of people and organize them into a powerful revolutionary force—including a section of the government armed forces that came over to the side of the revolution—and in the latter part of 1917 this revolutionary force succeeded in seizing power as the contradictions continued to intensify, largely as a result of the continuation of the war and the way it concentrated the underlying contradictions of the system of capitalism-imperialism.

That is what Lenin meant when he said that this war, with all of its massive destruction and terrible suffering, was a “stage manager” of revolution. But this did not happen “automatically” as a result of the mounting horrors of the war. There would have been no revolution in Russia then if the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, had not, first of all, maintained a principled stand in opposition to the war—going against the powerful tide of patriotic fervor at the beginning and for a good part of the war. Beyond that, there would have been no revolution in 1917 if Lenin had not provided decisive leadership in making the scientific analysis of the ways in which this war was greatly heightening the contradictions of the capitalist-imperialist system, overall and in a particularly acute way in Russia—or if the Bolsheviks had failed to apply this analysis and seize on the rare situation toward the end of the war when, as Lenin also put it, years and even decades of “normal times” became concentrated in months or even weeks of intensified contradictions and accelerated developments.

The Chinese Revolution and the Japanese Invasion and Occupation of China

In the late 1920s, after the slaughter of large numbers of Chinese Communists by reactionary forces headed by Chiang Kai-shek in Chinese urban areas, Mao Zedong led in making a crucial leap for the Chinese revolution: he headed a force of revolutionaries, recruited especially from among desperate sections of Chinese youth, to retreat into remote mountains and launch an armed struggle—a people’s war—against the oppressive and murderous government headed by Chiang Kai-shek (backed by “western” imperialists, including the U.S.). For several years, this people’s war succeeded in establishing and extending revolutionary base areas in the Chinese countryside and defeating successive attempts of the counter-revolutionary forces to suppress and liquidate these base areas and the revolutionary forces leading them. But, finally, in the mid-1930s, the Chiang Kai-shek government adopted new military strategy and tactics, which succeeded in forcing the revolutionaries to abandon the base areas and embark on what became known as the Long March, covering thousands of miles and ending up with the establishment of a new base area centered in Yenan in the interior of China.

Particularly with the eventual victory of the Chinese revolution—with the final defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s forces and the establishment of nationwide revolutionary political power in 1949—the Long March has come to be seen as a great revolutionary achievement. And it was. But it is also the case that, although this Long March did make possible a new and crucial stage in the Chinese revolution, the great majority of the revolutionary forces that embarked on this Long March—numbering in the tens and tens of thousands—died in the course of it. And it is entirely possible that not only those massive numbers of revolutionary fighters, but the revolution itself, could have been killed off—at least for a whole period of time—as a result of having to abandon the original base areas and carry out the tortuous Long March.

As it turned out, even with the great losses, a significant force survived the Long March, and this force—having fought many battles and overcome many hardships—was further tempered and steeled. Then, as a result of the invasion and occupation of large parts of China by Japanese imperialism, it became both necessary and possible to rally broad sections of the Chinese people in opposition to this invasion and occupation. And the need for the broadest possible resistance against the Japanese occupation, as well as the weakened position of Chiang Kai-shek’s government as a result of this occupation, established both the necessity and the basis to enter into a united front with this Chiang Kai-shek government to fight the Japanese invaders. (Because of “the reality on the ground” Chiang Kai-shek was forced to agree to this united front, even though, during the course of the war of resistance against Japan, Chiang continued his attempts to wipe out the communist-led forces, while giving up more and more ground to the Japanese.)

The result of all this was that, through the course of World War 2—which began in 1939 and finally ended in 1945 with the defeat of Japan and its allies, including Nazi Germany—the revolutionary forces in China led by Mao grew in numbers and strength; and, after a relatively brief interlude of attempted but failed negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek, through three more years of people’s war the revolution succeeded in thoroughly defeating the reactionary forces of the old order in 1949, capturing power throughout the Chinese mainland and forcing Chiang Kai-shek to flee to the island of Taiwan.

As was the case with World War 1, this second world war came about because of the intensification of the basic contradictions of the system of capitalism-imperialism. But the course of World War 2, including the Japanese occupation of China and the war of resistance waged against that occupation, in which the revolutionary forces led by Mao played a decisive role—all this resulted in a major change in the power relations within China, in a direction more favorable for the revolution; and this prepared much of the ground for the fight for the final victory of the revolution in 1949. In a real sense, the Japanese invasion and occupation of China constituted a kind of “fulcrum,” shifting the terms of the revolutionary struggle and providing the objective basis for a crucial advance of the revolution, after the devastating setback (the need to abandon the initial base areas of the revolution) which made necessary the Long March, with not only its real achievements but also its great losses.

This is what Mao meant when he said that Japan should be thanked for invading China. Obviously, Mao was not unaware of, or unconcerned about, the terrible atrocities which Japan’s occupation forces imposed on the Chinese people. His point was that the Japanese invasion and occupation, with all the destruction and suffering it brought for hundreds of millions of Chinese people, and for the Chinese nation as a whole, ended up contributing, in a major way, to the eventual victory of the Chinese revolution, and with it the possibility of uprooting the fundamental and overall causes of the horrific exploitation and oppression to which the masses of Chinese people had been subjected not just for years and decades but for centuries and millennia.

Mao’s ironic statement—we should thank Japan for invading—reflects the reality that the invasion and occupation of China by Japanese imperialism ended up contributing, in a major way, to the success of the Chinese revolution. But this revolution could not have succeeded if those leading it, and in particular Mao, had not grasped and acted in accordance with the changing objective conditions brought about by the Japanese invasion and occupation, particularly as this took place in the overall context of World War 2—and then the qualitatively changed conditions again, within China and in the world as a whole, with the end of World War 2, in which Japan was defeated and its occupation of China ended.

Crucial Lessons for This Rare Time When Revolution Has Become—More—Possible

Of course, no one can say with certainty that the Chinese revolution could not have eventually succeeded even if Japan had not invaded (or that there could never have been a communist-led revolution in Russia without World War 1). As Mao also emphasized, Marxists are not fortune-tellers. Marxism—communism—is a continually developing science, which proceeds on the basis of analyzing a continually changing objective reality.

The point, once again, is that revolutions do not proceed in a straight line, but through many twists and turns, including setbacks and defeats, sometimes very serious setbacks and defeats, along the way. The actual process is in line with another statement by Mao, which applies to even a successful revolution—that it is a matter of fighting and failing, repeatedly, until victory is finally achieved. And, all along the way, there is a need to apply a scientific method and approach to learn not only from advances, and from what prove to be correct policies, but also from mistakes, difficulties, setbacks and defeats, to continually make a scientific analysis of the constantly changing situation, and to recognize and seize on openings for advance, especially situations where there are profound, qualitative changes in the objective situation providing the potential for major advance, even perhaps the victory of the revolution.

Through the application of this scientific method and approach, it can be, and has been, firmly established that there is a basis and a possibility—not a certainty or “inevitability” but an actual basis and possibility—for revolution aiming for a communist world to ultimately triumph. And even while today the conditions in the U.S. and the world are vastly different than they were during the different phases of the Chinese revolution, in the first half of the last century, or the Russian revolution in 1917—and revolution in this country obviously will not and cannot come about as some kind of “copy” of either of those revolutions—especially in these tumultuous times now, the possibility of an actual revolution is real, yes right in this powerful imperialist USA. But this possibility cannot be grasped without the scientific method and approach of communism, as it has been further developed with the new communism. And a revolution will not, and cannot, be brought about without applying this method and approach to continually make, and act on, a scientific assessment of the constantly, and now rapidly, changing objective reality—including the daunting challenges and vexing difficulties, but most fundamentally the development of the contradictions of the system of capitalism-imperialism and the consequences of this, on a world level as well as within this country itself.

This scientific approach is especially crucial in those times when the contradictions of this system are changing in a major way—and, above all, those rare times when, as Lenin noted, years and decades of “normal times” become concentrated in months or even weeks, when contradictions are repeatedly intensified and changes rapidly accelerated, heightening the prospect of great disaster for humanity but also the possibility of wrenching a radically different and far better future, through revolution.

This is one of those rare times.

Why? As explained in Organizing for an Actual Revolution: 7 Key Points,

Brutal and murderous white supremacy, male supremacy, and other oppressive relations, the deepening crisis in society and the world overall, including the constant wars and the continuing destruction of the environment: all this cannot ultimately be resolved, in any positive way, within the confines of the system that rules in this country and dominates in the world as a whole—the system of capitalism-imperialism. Under the rule of this system, all this will only get worse. The deepening divisions within this country now, from top to bottom, mean that those who have ruled in this country for so long (the capitalist-imperialist ruling class) can no longer rule, as a “unified force,” in the “normal” way that people have been conditioned to accept—with a system of government that has an outer shell of “democracy” to cover over the fact that it is an actual capitalist dictatorship at its core, relying fundamentally on the armed force of the institutions of “official violence,” the police and the military. Because of big changes in this country and the world overall, one part of the ruling class, represented by the Republican Party, has become fascist: they no longer believe in or feel bound by what have been the “norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. And the other section of the ruling class, represented by the Democratic Party, has no real answer to this—except trying to maintain the “normal way” that the oppressive rule of this system has been enforced for hundreds of years, while the fascists are determined to tear up those “norms” and rule through more openly and aggressively oppressive means, without the traditional disguise of supposed “democracy for all.”

The crisis and deep divisions in society can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means, or radically emancipating revolutionary means. And this resolution could quite possibly happen, one way or the other, within the next few years. This rare situation, with the deepening and sharpening conflicts among the ruling powers, and in the society overall, provides a stronger basis and greater openings to break the hold of this system over masses of people. In a situation like this, things that have basically remained the same, for decades, can radically change in a very short period of time. This rare time must not be wasted— it must be seized on to have a real fighting chance to bring about a truly emancipating revolutionary resolution, and not be subjected to a terrible, reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive resolution.¹

This, once more, requires resolutely “going against the tide” of spontaneous mass sentiments, including the stubborn tendency of many to remain stuck in the well-worn rut of relying on “the way things have always been,” even as that “way” is being profoundly disrupted and shattered by the intensifying, and even potentially existential, “earthquakes” erupting in this country and the world overall. As I have emphasized before, people—masses of people, in different parts of society—need to be shaken awake, through sharp, and at times fierce, struggle to get them to confront the very real horrors shaping up on the near horizon but also the real possibility for a revolutionary way forward out of this madness. This means breaking with the dominant relations and ways of thinking of this putrid system of capitalism-imperialism, including its quicksand trap of elections to choose between the Democrat and Republican representatives of the ruling class of this system.

The following, which I wrote years ago now, has greatly heightened and urgent meaning today:

Indeed, if and when conflicts among different sections of the ruling class reach the point where they are beginning to assume antagonistic proportions themselves, that is a sign of extremely deep and acute cracks and fissures in the entire established order; and such a situation must be seized by the oppressed not to side with one section of the bourgeoisie against another—thus helping the ruling class to “repair” the rupturing old order and reinforce its dictatorship, in one form or another—but instead to rise in revolutionary struggle to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie altogether.²

Masses of people: all those who suffer so horribly in the “normal times” of living under the rule of this system of capitalism-imperialism...all those who hunger for a more just world and a future worth living in, but whose future will be something truly terrible if things are allowed to continue on the terms set by this system... Masses of people, in continually growing numbers, must be made aware of the meaning and implications of this rare time, including through fierce struggle as necessary to win them to raise their sights and recognize not only the necessity but the possibility to seize on this rare time to make revolution and wrench something really positive, yes something truly emancipating, out of this rare time.

Introduction:

Some people have argued that an attempt to make an actual revolution, to overthrow the ruling system of capitalism-imperialism in this country, up against the powerful armed forces of this system, would be suicidal. This is something I spoke to, a number of years ago now, in the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Many people, including many who say they would like to see a radical change in society, insist that revolution is not possible because “they” are too powerful, and “people are too messed up.” Well, it is true that, shaped as they are by this system, the masses of people, in any part of society, don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses, when it comes to an understanding of how things really are, why they are the way they are, and what could and should be done about this. But this stands in sharp contradiction to another important truth—that millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of the “5 STOPS.” This is a contradiction that we have to go to work on, to move masses of people in the direction of the revolution that is needed to finally put a stop to those “5 STOPS” and the horrific conditions to which the masses of humanity are constantly subjected. [The 5 STOPS refers to five major social contradictions and forms of oppression and devastation that are built into this system of capitalism-imperialism and which can only be eliminated through a revolution to overthrow this system.]³

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.⁴ (Emphasis added.)

This series of five articles speaks more fully to why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary now but why, with the right scientific approach, such a revolution could in fact have a real chance to succeed—and why anyone who really wants to see a radically different world, without all the horrors that are continually brought about, and the even greater horrors for humanity that are now threatened by this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to be actively involved in working tirelessly, with scientifically based determination, for this revolution.

The following is the first in a series of selections from my talks and writings speaking to how to go about carrying out a revolution in this country, mobilizing millions of people, with the goal of actually defeating the violent enforcers of this system of capitalism-imperialism, abolishing this system altogether, and bringing into being a radically different, emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.⁵

 This part one contains an excerpt from “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating” (which is available at revcom.us); and then an excerpt from a presentation to a gathering of revcoms (revolutionary communists) in 2022.

Everything depends on bringing forward a revolutionary people, from among the most bitterly oppressed, and all parts of society, first in the thousands and then in the millions, as a powerful revolutionary force, organized from the start and consistently with a country-wide perspective, impacting all of society and changing the terms of how masses of people see things and how every institution has to respond. Everything must be focused now on actually bringing forward and organizing this revolutionary force.

And then, once this revolutionary force is brought into being, everything would be focused on how to actually fight to win.

At that point, this force of millions would need to be mobilized and wielded in such a way as to make clear that it is going for a complete, revolutionary change—that it will not back down from this goal and accept anything less. In this way, it would constitute a powerful pole attracting and drawing forward even broader numbers of people from all parts of society—and it would pose a definite challenge and call to people everywhere in society, including in all the existing institutions of this system, to come over to the side of this revolution.

~~~~~~~~~~

As I said in the Dialogue with Cornel West: It is important that we are right, and righteous—it is important that we stand with the wretched of the Earth and stand up against their oppression—but we have to win. We have to actually shatter the rule of this monstrous system, and bring something radically different and much better into being. Or else, we will at best “fight the good fight” but the horrors will continue, and get even worse.⁶

The sixth point of the Points of Attention for the Revolution says this: “We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.”⁷

I have highlighted the words “Because we are serious” in order to emphasize that this Point of Attention is not a declaration of some idealist pacifist notion that the struggle against this system can and must always remain non-violent. First of all, while we are against all violence against the people and among the people, and at this stage we do not initiate (and we do not encourage others to initiate) violence, at the same time we strongly recognize and uphold the right of people to defend themselves against unjust attacks. And, more strategically, we scientifically understand that: the fundamental source of violence in the world is this system of capitalism-imperialism, that by far the greatest perpetrators of unjust violence are the ruling classes of the capitalist-imperialist powers, most of all this country—and that the fundamental reason why the abolition of this system cannot be achieved peacefully is, once again, because of the nature of this system itself, and the fact that those who rule in it would never allow their system to be swept away without attempting to violently suppress and crush any such attempt.

This is what it means that we are serious about all this.

It is with this understanding, and this orientation, that we have to very seriously approach the question of how to actually win—win in the more immediate fight, historically speaking, to seize power—and win in a way that lays the basis for winning in the largest sense, with the goal of uprooting all oppression and exploitation, all over the world, bringing into being a communist world in which human beings can truly thrive with the fullest expression of their humanity.

Next >>

Introduction: 

Some people have argued that an attempt to make an actual revolution, to overthrow the ruling system of capitalism-imperialism in this country, up against the powerful armed forces of this system, would be suicidal. This is something I spoke to, a number of years ago now, in the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Many people, including many who say they would like to see a radical change in society, insist that revolution is not possible because “they” are too powerful, and “people are too messed up.” Well, it is true that, shaped as they are by this system, the masses of people, in any part of society, don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses, when it comes to an understanding of how things really are, why they are the way they are, and what could and should be done about this. But this stands in sharp contradiction to another important truth—that millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of the “5 STOPS.” This is a contradiction that we have to go to work on, to move masses of people in the direction of the revolution that is needed to finally put a stop to those “5 STOPS” and the horrific conditions to which the masses of humanity are constantly subjected. [The 5 STOPS refers to five major social contradictions and forms of oppression and devastation that are built into this system of capitalism-imperialism and which can only be eliminated through a revolution to overthrow this system.]¹

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.² [emphasis added here]

This series of five articles speaks more fully to why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary now but why, with the right scientific approach, such a revolution could in fact have a real chance to succeed—and why anyone who really wants to see a radically different world, without all the horrors that are continually brought about, and the even greater horrors for humanity that are now threatened, by this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to be actively involved in working tirelessly, with scientifically-based determination, for this revolution.

The following excerpt from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution is the second in this series of selections from my talks and writings speaking to how to go about carrying out a revolution in this country, mobilizing millions of people, with the goal of actually defeating the violent enforcers of this system of capitalism-imperialism, abolishing this system altogether, and bringing into being a radically different, emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.³

Let’s begin with the statement from HOW WE CAN WIN that everything we are doing is “aiming for something very definite—a revolutionary situation: Where the system and its ruling powers are in a serious crisis” and “millions and millions of people refuse to be ruled in the old way—and are willing and determined to put everything on the line to bring down this system and bring into being a new society and government that will be based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. That is the time to go all-out to win. That is what we need to be actively working for and preparing for now.”⁴ Key components and signs of a revolutionary crisis are that the violence used “to enforce this system is seen by large parts of society for what it is—murderous and illegitimate” and that “the conflicts among the ruling forces become really deep and sharp—and masses of people respond to this not by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers, but by taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.” This underlines the great importance of ongoing work and compelling struggle to break people away from the “hold” of the political operatives and media mouthpieces of this system.

I will speak more fully to how we need to be actively preparing now for a revolutionary situation. But, first, in order to have the fullest sense of this, we need to work back from that situation and what would be required then—how the all-out fight would need to be waged—to have a real chance to defeat the powerful, violent forces of this system. Here again, it is crucially important to approach things in a serious and scientific way. This is what is done in “On the Possibility of Revolution,” which (as noted in HOW WE CAN WIN) “sets forth the foundation—the strategic conception and doctrine—for how to fight with a real chance of winning,” once the necessary conditions have been brought into being. “On the Possibility of Revolution” (which is available at revcom.us) is an important document that deserves serious study.⁵ Here, I am going to examine some of the key points that are gone into in depth in “On the Possibility of Revolution” and are summarized in a more concentrated way in HOW WE CAN WIN.

A big problem for the revolution is what could be called the “encirclement and suppression” of the people at the base of society who are subjected to one injury and insult after another under this system, and who yearn for an end to all this madness, but who are, in a certain sense, “surrounded” in the society at large by sections of people who do not directly suffer the same daily outrages. To put it simply, there are large numbers of poor and bitterly oppressed people in this country, but there is also a big middle class. Although much of this middle class is not doing as well economically as in the past, there is still a big gap between the middle class and the people at the base of society, and this big divide is one of the main reasons why people—even people who say they would like to see a revolution, but who just look at things on the surface and do not analyze the situation scientifically—say that revolution is not possible. And it is something that the ruling class, and its institutions of repression and control, have seized on, in their efforts to isolate and contain, as brutally as they deem necessary, those whom they most viciously oppress and who represent potentially the greatest threat to their system. This is something these ruling powers would seek to do in an even more systematic and greatly intensified way in a situation where they were confronted by an organized revolutionary struggle aimed at overthrowing their whole system. It is one of the main obstacles the revolutionary forces would need to overcome in order to have a real chance of winning. Not only the strategic approach and basic operational principles, but also certain particular tactical measures of the revolutionary forces—including concentrating forces to repeatedly break through and break down the other side’s physical encirclement of areas of revolutionary strength—would need to be developed and applied to address this major contradiction once the all-out struggle were underway. But confronting this basic problem cannot be left until the time when the all-out struggle is raging. This is something I spoke to in very plain and stark terms in THE NEW COMMUNISM, where I emphasized that we need to “transform this situation so that, when the time comes, it’s not going to be the case that they can easily contain this revolution to those sections of the people that they’d... just as soon kill off anyway.”⁶ And, as is also emphasized in Part 2 of Birds Cannot Give Birth to Crocodiles, But Humanity Can Soar Beyond the Horizon: “political and ideological work with this contradiction in mind would need to be carried out during the whole period before the emergence of the necessary conditions and... [the all-out] struggle is launched.”⁷ The more this work is carried out, from here forward, the more the revolutionary forces would be able to counter and defeat the military “encirclement and suppression” of the strongholds of the revolution when the time came for the all-out fight.

As I put it in THE NEW COMMUNISM, a defining contradiction of this all-out fight is the fact that, at the start, the other side “would likely still be very powerful in military terms, although weak, and in crisis, politically”; while the revolutionary side “would be weak, at the beginning, in military terms, but strong, and on the rise, and having a great deal of initiative, politically, which then would have to be transformed into initiative militarily.” The operational principles and stratagems that are outlined in the final part of HOW WE CAN WIN, speaking specifically to “How We Could Defeat Them,” are particular applications of the approach to dealing with this contradiction.

An overall principle that flows from this contradiction is the fact that, once underway, the all-out fight would need to be protracted but also finite. “Protracted” means drawn out—it would not be a situation where the outcome, if it were favorable for the revolution, could be decided in a very short period of time. “Finite” means having definite limits—not extended indefinitely. Given that, at the beginning, the balance of power would almost certainly be heavily in favor of the forces of counter-revolution (the forces of the old ruling class and those fighting with it to defeat the revolution) in terms of their military organization and experience, as well as their armaments, the revolutionary forces would need to draw out (protract) the conflict for a certain period, in order to transform the situation into one in which they could overcome those strategic disadvantages. At the same time, because this all-out fight should only be launched by the revolutionary forces in a situation marked by a deep and acute revolutionary crisis and a revolutionary people in the millions and millions, if it were protracted over too long a period, without the revolution advancing in a fairly limited period of time toward the situation where it began to have the upper hand, then the advantages of a revolutionary situation would tend to be lost, the overall initiative would return to the counter-revolution, and the allegiance of significant sections of society, including in the middle classes, that was lost by the old ruling class, would be regained to a degree that could spell defeat for the revolution. This touches on a very important point of strategic orientation: When it comes down to it, what happens on the battlefield will be decisive in determining the outcome but, for the revolutionary forces, one of the key objectives of the fighting would be to demoralize and disintegrate the ranks of the other side, both their actual fighting forces and their broader “civilian support,” leading to further loss of allegiance and of initiative on the counter-revolutionary side; and, to the degree this succeeded, it would be a key element in shifting the balance of forces in favor of the revolution. The all-out struggle will not just mean going up against the institutional forces of the old ruling class but will also involve “a civil war between two sections of the people,” requiring the revolution to both defeat and disintegrate but also, as far as possible, win over parts of the armed forces among the population that started out on the other side....

To begin, “backbone forces”—especially youth strongly committed to and actively involved in the revolution—would need to be transformed “into organized fighting forces in key strategic areas” and provided with the necessary training and equipment. Doing this would depend on the recognition that the revolutionary situation is clearly emerging. On the one hand, trying to do this before the immediate approach of a revolutionary situation would almost certainly lead to this effort being easily targeted and quickly crushed. On the other side of things, once a revolutionary situation were at hand, the shattering of the “normal conditions” and “normal functioning” of the system that such a situation would involve, would make it possible not to easily and smoothly organize, train, and equip fighting forces for the revolution, but to wrench, out of the intensifying situation, the basis for doing this. The point is that doing this, without being wiped out, would be a process of very intense struggle, but the dramatically new situation would provide the possibility for waging, and winning, this beginning struggle.

Similarly, providing for the basic logistical needs of this revolutionary fighting force, to enable it to initiate the all-out fight, without being immediately crushed, and then to quickly regroup and once again take the initiative and maintain momentum overall, without being “fixed” and annihilated, would also involve intense struggle, and would require defeating enemy blockades and attacks and penetration directed against strongholds of the revolution and focused on locating and destroying those who make up the revolutionary fighting forces and their logistical sources. All this would require “misdirection” and surprise in operations. And all this would depend on millions more, beyond the backbone fighting forces, being organized concretely as “reserves” and as networks of support and supply for these fighting forces, and the willingness and ability of these “reserves” to “absorb” and protect the fighting forces and their equipment and logistical supplies, and enable them to repeatedly regroup and seize the initiative. This would also require continual “calibration” of the size of fighting units and their operations, at any given time, to enable these fighting units, upon completion of an engagement, to “melt back into” the larger revolutionary “reserves,” while at the same time the conditions are being created to allow them to remain active, in training and in initiating further engagements with the enemy.

The approach of capturing equipment from the enemy is important for any revolutionary force which starts out facing an enemy with an overwhelming advantage in destructive power and, for some time, a much greater capacity to produce more of this. But HOW WE CAN WIN also emphasizes that utilizing equipment captured from the enemy must be done in ways that “fit the fighting strategy of the revolution.” Not all equipment that might be captured from the other side would be usable by the revolutionary forces—to try to use some captured equipment could put requirements on the logistical capabilities of the revolution that could not be met or sustained, and/or propel the revolutionary forces into fighting in ways that would run counter to the strategy the revolution would need to follow, and/or violate the basic principles and goals for which the revolution is being fought. It has everything to do with what the revolution is all about in the first place, as well as whether or not it has a real chance of succeeding, that HOW WE CAN WIN emphasizes that the revolutionary fighting forces must, “Always conduct operations and act in ways that are in line with the emancipating outlook and goals of the revolution.” Still, in addition to developing means to enlist masses of people in creating equipment the revolutionary forces could utilize, ways could be developed to utilize a great deal of equipment captured from the enemy that are consistent with the strategic orientation, the ways of fighting, and the goals of the revolution. All this would be vital for the advance and ultimate success of the revolution.

As stressed in HOW WE CAN WIN, the revolutionary forces would need to fight only on favorable terms and avoid decisive encounters, which would determine the outcome of the whole thing, until the balance of forces had shifted overwhelmingly in favor of the revolution. This flows from what has been discussed regarding the overwhelmingly superior destructive force of the counter-revolution at the start of the all-out fight. What is also very important to underline is that this is not merely a question of orientation and intent on the part of the revolutionary forces. Given its overwhelming superiority of force, for some time the enemy would continually seek precisely to force the revolutionaries into situations where they would either be compelled to fight decisive battles that they were bound to lose, or they would have to surrender outright—leading to the total defeat of the revolution, or putting it well on the road to defeat. The point is that being able to avoid potentially disastrous decisive encounters with the enemy would itself be a matter of intense struggle, including that the revolutionary forces could often find themselves having to wage a determined struggle just to avoid being trapped in a situation where they would have to fight such a decisive encounter, or surrender. This is why HOW WE CAN WIN speaks of actively avoiding unfavorable decisive encounters and fighting only on favorable terms. It is why it also emphasizes that, even when the “balance of forces” has shifted in favor of the revolution, it would still be necessary, when conducting operations aimed at achieving final victory, to continue to “calibrate” those operations, “so that decisive encounters are still avoided until the forces of the old order have been brought to the brink of total defeat”—which would then be the time to “fully, finally, rout and dismantle the remaining enemy forces.”

And it is because of the same concerns that HOW WE CAN WIN, while speaking to the importance of building up political and logistical bases of support for the revolution, at the same time stresses that the revolutionary forces should “not attempt to openly control and govern territory, until the necessary ‘favorable balance of forces’ has been created.” To attempt to do so prematurely would make this territory, the people within it, and the revolutionary forces defending and governing it, highly vulnerable to attack from an enemy that, again, would have overwhelming destructive power; and it would put the revolutionaries in the position of having the responsibility—and what, under the circumstances, would be an unsupportable burden—to meet the basic requirements of a functioning society, and the people within it. The point, the goal, is to carry forward the fight to thoroughly defeat, and dismantle, the forces of the old order, and on that basis to bring into being a new, revolutionary state that can embark on the thorough transformation of society with the ultimate aim of overcoming and eliminating all relations of exploitation and oppression, everywhere in the world.

This ultimate aim and internationalist orientation of the revolution is also why HOW WE CAN WIN speaks to the need for the revolutionary forces in this country to correctly handle the relation between the all-out fight, when the time comes, and the situation—including the character and level of revolutionary struggle—in countries to the south (and the north). As we know, this country was created through and amidst warfare; and, as I spoke to earlier, it has continually expanded its territory and extended the reach of its empire through armed conquest, enslavement and other forms of extreme exploitation. In carrying out the fight to overthrow the violent rule of this system, both as a matter of orientation and principle, and in terms of strengthening the basis for succeeding, it will be crucial to refuse to be bound by the borders that have been established and the walls that have been erected through the murder and marauding of the ruling capitalist-imperialists of this country, but instead to actively unite with peoples to the south, and the north, in the struggle against this capitalist-imperialist monster, and advance the revolution overall, in this part of the world and in the world as a whole.

In contrast to the revolutionary forces, the forces of the old order, especially when faced with the prospect that their oppressive system could actually be overthrown and dismantled, would resort to all kinds of barbarity to preserve this system. As it is put in “On the Possibility of Revolution”:

It is not that the imperialists would hold back from bringing down terrible destructive force against the revolutionaries and the masses of people who supported them—given their reactionary nature, it would be necessary to reckon with the fact that the imperialists would do this—but the decisive question would be whether, through doing this, the imperialists would be able to isolate and destroy the organized forces of the revolution; or whether, on the contrary, these barbaric actions of the imperialists would deepen the hatred of growing numbers of people for the imperialists, stiffen the resolve of those already supporting the revolutionary side, and win more of the people to sympathize with, and to actively support, the revolutionary cause....

“Decapitating” the leadership of the revolution, and destroying or crippling the means of coordination and overall direction for the revolutionary forces, would also be one of the major objectives of the counter-revolution. HOW WE CAN WIN correctly emphasizes the importance of “Relying on mass support, the intelligence this provides for the revolution and the denial of intelligence to the enemy, [to] counter the enemy’s efforts to find, fix and annihilate revolutionary leadership and key fighting units” and the importance of combining “strategic direction and coordination for the fight as a whole, with decentralized actions and initiative by local units and leaders.” Here again stands out the importance of all the work, from here forward, to build the revolution, among masses of people in many different parts of society. But it has to be squarely faced that, when it comes down to it, even with broad and deep mass support, protecting leadership, in particular the top leading core of the revolution, maintaining overall coordination and strategic direction, and being able to rapidly replace leaders and forces that are lost, is, and will remain, a serious challenge; and this, too, must be actively prepared for and struggled for, including by bringing forward growing ranks of revolutionary leadership now, who are trained and tempered through the combination of being actively involved in building the revolution and becoming more and more deeply grounded in the scientific outlook and methods of communism as it has been further developed with the new communism.

This brings us back to the decisive point that everything that has been spoken to in terms of how we could defeat them, when the time comes, “depends on winning millions to revolution in the period that leads up to the ripening of a revolutionary situation.”....

Here, it could be helpful to look at the similarities, and the differences, between the revolutionary process in a country like this and, on the other hand, what has happened in some Third World countries where conditions have allowed the revolutionaries to wage an armed struggle from the beginning of the revolutionary process—to start by fighting battles against small parts of the enemy forces, and to wage war over a long period of time, to wear down the enemy and build up their own forces, with the aim of reaching the point where the “balance of forces” has shifted in their favor, and they can then fight larger-scale battles to finally defeat the forces of the old order. This does have some things in common with how the all-out fight would be waged in a country like this, once the conditions for that had been brought into being. But there are important differences. In this kind of country, an armed struggle would not—should not—be launched until a revolutionary situation had been brought into being in society overall, and then this struggle, while having a certain aspect of being protracted, would also be considerably shorter (more finite) than the overall process of protracted revolutionary wars that have been carried out in Third World countries. In a country like this, there needs to be a process of political, ideological, and organizational work to carry out those “3 Prepares,” to hasten the development of things toward the revolutionary situation, when it would then become possible to launch an all-out struggle with a real chance of winning, through a somewhat protracted but also finite process. [The “3 Prepares" are: prepare the ground (the situation in society overall), prepare the people, and prepare the vanguard leadership for the revolution.]

To summarize briefly: Third World revolutionary wars—armed struggle from the beginning, over a whole protracted period, to create the basis for the final decisive battles; revolution in a country like this—a process of political, ideological, and organizational work to hasten and prepare for the development of a revolutionary situation, whereupon the all-out fight could be launched, and carried out over a somewhat protracted but also finite period.

In both types of situations, there is an aspect of “awaiting” as well as “hastening.” Even where revolutionaries in Third World countries have been able to wage warfare from the beginning, they have had to wait for, while actively fighting to bring into being, the situation where they can successfully fight large-scale decisive battles (and in some cases things have become protracted to the point of being bogged down, without any prospect of success). In both situations, everything the revolutionaries are doing needs to be aimed at getting to the point where they can go all-out to finally defeat and dismantle the violent enforcers of the old oppressive system; but the paths and the processes are different because of the different conditions. The point is that everything we are doing, at all times, is part of making revolution—actively working, according to a strategic approach and plan, to move things, as fast as possible, toward the time when it will be possible for millions to fight, all-out, with a real chance to win.

So, with this understanding and orientation, how do we go about hastening while awaiting? The means for doing this is concentrated in the formulation: “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.” Let’s start with the aim of all this—Revolution. In BAsics 3:1, I put it like this: “Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.”⁸ That is another simple and basic truth. We need to go to people—not just one or two people, not just a small number of people, but masses of people, reaching all over the country, in every part of society—straight up with revolution—instead of just letting “where they are at” set the terms, and trying to somehow “bring in” some idea about revolution within that limited framework. As BAsics 3:1 goes on to say: We do need to unite with people in all sorts of struggles short of revolution; but it is frankly ridiculous to think that something short of revolution could solve all the monumental problems and monstrous outrages that people face under this system. On the basis of going to people straight up with revolution, then, coming from that place, we need to unite with people in fighting injustice and oppression, and struggle to win more and more people to see the need and the possibility for revolution, and to get with this....

This goes back to the important contradiction that millions and millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of those “5 STOPS,” but in terms of understanding where all these outrages come from and what is necessary to really put a stop to them, most of the same people don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses. So, while uniting with and working to bring forward still greater numbers of people in protesting and resisting the atrocities of this system, there is a need for sharp struggle to win them to confront and grasp the fact that, in fundamental terms, this system is the source of all these horrors, and it cannot be reformed but must be overthrown.

This is revolutionary work that must be carried out, by continually growing numbers of people organized into the ranks of the revolution and acting together in accordance with a common strategic orientation and plan. This must be done consistently, including in more “normal” times (whatever those are), and it is of heightened importance “with every ‘jolt’ in society—every crisis, every new outrage, where many people question and resist what they normally accept...."

HOW WE CAN WIN emphasizes that: “The organized forces and the leadership of this revolution must become the ‘authority’ that growing numbers of people look to and follow—not the lying politicians and media of this oppressive system—not those who front for the oppressors and preach about ‘reconciliation’ with this system—not those who turn people against each other when they need to be uniting for this revolution...."

Revolution IS possible—and we have to go to work to make it real. So let me end with what is powerfully stated in the conclusion of HOW WE CAN WIN:

All this depends on winning millions to revolution in the period that leads up to the ripening of a revolutionary situation. The chance to defeat them, when the time comes—the chance to be rid of this system and to bring something far better into being—has everything to do with what we do now. Everyone who hungers for a radically different world, free of exploitation and oppression and all the needless suffering caused by this system, needs to work now with a fired determination to make this happen, so we will have a real chance to win.

Introduction: 

Some people have argued that an attempt to make an actual revolution, to overthrow the ruling system of capitalism-imperialism in this country, up against the powerful armed forces of this system, would be suicidal. This is something I spoke to, a number of years ago now, in the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Many people, including many who say they would like to see a radical change in society, insist that revolution is not possible because “they” are too powerful, and “people are too messed up.” Well, it is true that, shaped as they are by this system, the masses of people, in any part of society, don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses, when it comes to an understanding of how things really are, why they are the way they are, and what could and should be done about this. But this stands in sharp contradiction to another important truth—that millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of the “5 STOPS.” This is a contradiction that we have to go to work on, to move masses of people in the direction of the revolution that is needed to finally put a stop to those “5 STOPS” and the horrific conditions to which the masses of humanity are constantly subjected. [The 5 STOPS refers to five major social contradictions and forms of oppression and devastation that are built into this system of capitalism-imperialism and which can only be eliminated through a revolution to overthrow this system.]¹

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.² [emphasis added here]

This series of five articles speaks more fully to why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary now but why, with the right scientific approach, such a revolution could in fact have a real chance to succeed—and why anyone who really wants to see a radically different world, without all the horrors that are continually brought about, and the even greater horrors for humanity that are now threatened, by this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to be actively involved in working tirelessly, with scientifically based determination, for this revolution.

The following, from “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating”³ is the third in this series of selections from my talks and writings speaking to how to go about carrying out a revolution in this country, mobilizing millions of people, with the goal of actually defeating the violent enforcers of this system of capitalism-imperialism, abolishing this system altogether, and bringing into being a radically different, emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.⁴

What are the necessary conditions for a revolution? In basic terms, they are:

A crisis in society and government so deep and so disruptive of the “usual way of things,” that those who have ruled over us, for so long, can no longer do so in the “normal” way that people have been conditioned to accept.

A revolutionary people in the millions and millions, with their “allegiance” to this system broken, and their determination to fight for a more just society greater than their fear of the violent repression of this system.

An organized revolutionary force—made up of continually growing numbers of people, from among the most oppressed but also from many other parts of society—a force which is grounded in, and is working systematically to apply, the most scientific approach to building for and then carrying out revolution, and which is increasingly looked to by masses of people to lead them to bring about the radical change that is urgently needed....

The reality now is that the fascist section of the ruling class, represented by and concentrated in the Republican Party, is actively and aggressively engaged in a “two-pronged” move to achieve and consolidate fascist rule. These “two prongs” are: corrupting and controlling the electoral process and key government institutions; and the threat and use of violence, including through the mobilization of violent mobs. These fascists are, for now, relying mainly on the first, but with the second (violence) as an “accompaniment” to this—which could become their main means, if that proves necessary for them. In any case, if they succeed, the full power of the government—including the executive power of the presidency, the courts and legal apparatus, the prisons, as well as the police and the military—will be wielded to crush any effective opposition to fascist rule and to forcefully impose its program of “restoring” America to its mythological “greatness” on the basis of aggressive white supremacy, crude and brutal male supremacy and suppression of LGBT people, xenophobia (hatred and persecution of foreigners and immigrants, particularly from what Trump infamously referred to as “shithole countries”), forceful assertion and chauvinistic trumpeting of American dominance and “the superiority of western civilization,” along with willful rejection of science and the scientific method, especially where it would interfere with unrestrained plunder of the environment, as well as people.

Given the nature, objectives and actions of the fascists, there is the real possibility of actual civil war. But given the nature, objectives and actions of the “mainstream” section of the ruling class (as represented by the Democratic Party and media such as MSNBC, the New York Times and CNN), and given the current situation with those, from different parts of society, who tend to support, and politically tail behind, this “mainstream” section of the ruling class, it is possible that the fascists could achieve and consolidate power without a civil war, but with all the terrible consequences that would follow this fascist consolidation of power. Or, as emphasized in the “Declaration and Call,” in what would amount to a one-sided civil war, these fascists could carry out a slaughter of those they hate, including Black people and other people of color, “illegal immigrants,” “uppity women” and those who don’t conform to “traditional” sexual and gender relations and “norms.”

In any case, it is a deadly serious reality that these fascists are determined to crush—as violently as necessary—anyone and anything, anywhere in society, that stands in the way of implementing their horrific objectives.

This puts an exclamation point on what the “Declaration and Call” says immediately after this:

This situation needs to be radically changed, to where there are masses of people prepared to defeat these fascists and to do so as part of getting rid of this whole system, which has bred these fascists, along with all the other horrors it continually perpetrates. ...⁵

This is not the time of the Civil War in the 1860s, when the goal of those fighting against injustice was to abolish slavery, and—in terms of who ruled society—the only possible positive outcome was the consolidation and strengthening of the rule of the rising capitalist class centered in the North. That time is now long gone. And this system of capitalism, which has developed into a system of worldwide exploitation and oppression, capitalism-imperialism, is long outmoded—long past its expiration date, long past any circumstances where it could play any positive role. The goal now must precisely be getting rid of this whole system of capitalism-imperialism. 

The character of a new civil war would have significantly different features from that previous civil war of 1861-65, where one geographic part of the country, the southern Confederacy, attempted to secede and form a separate country in that territory. Today, the forces of fascism among the population are again concentrated in the South, as well as in rural areas throughout the country; but, in the South and throughout the country, they are closely connected, geographically, with sections of the population that are opposed to this fascism. Any new civil war would be fought between opposing forces that would be in close proximity to each other—in a real sense intertwined geographically—around the country. This would have both advantages and disadvantages for the people on the positive side of such a civil war, and this would need to be taken into account in their approach to fighting that civil war.

(The “Red States/Blue States” picture, which is constantly presented in the mainstream media, is very misleading in terms of the geographic and political divisions in the country. It does not present an accurate picture of population concentration—of which sections of the people are actually concentrated where, and in what numbers, within the existing states. Of particular importance, it downplays the concentration of people in this country as a whole in urban areas, including the suburbs around the inner city cores, and the concentration of masses of oppressed people especially in those inner city cores. It downplays the strong opposition to the fascists that exists among large numbers of people in the urban areas. This mainstream presentation of things is meant to reinforce the sense that the only possibility is the continuation of this system of capitalism-imperialism, and the only choice is between the two parties representing the ruling class of this system: the “red” Republican Party or the “blue” Democratic Party. And, by the way, with the color red historically associated with communism, the “appropriation” of this color in association with the fascist Republican Party is an abomination!)

The current polarization, even on the positive side, among those opposed to the fascists, is not what is needed, and will not meet the profound and urgent challenge of these times. For the reasons discussed in this talk, there can be no real and lasting defeat of these fascists on the terms of the Democrats, on the terms of what have been, for generations, the “norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. Fundamentally, there can be no resolution to this, under this system, which will be in the interests of the masses of people, not just in this country but in the world as a whole. Once more, what is urgently needed is a very different polarization than what exists today—a repolarization—for revolution.

And, once again as well—without being absolute about this—there is a limited time frame within which this repolarization must be achieved. If things continue as they are, with the fascist offensive by the Republican Party and its base becoming even more aggressive and powerful, then it is very likely that their “two-pronged offensive” will succeed, that they will utilize the changes they are forcing through state governments and key parts of the federal government, in particular the courts, to regain and consolidate control of the country as a whole, move forward with a vengeance to implement their fascist program, and forcefully suppress, as violently as necessary, any effective opposition.

The urgency of this situation—and the urgent need for repolarization, for revolution—must be clearly understood, and forcefully conveyed to masses of people. This must be done in a compelling way, without hype (and there is no need for hype to describe the critical situation and urgent stakes). While it is crucially important to unite with people in rising up against the terrible injustices and outrages constantly perpetrated by this system, and to continually bring alive the possibility of a radically different and emancipating alternative, once again it needs to be stressed: It is necessary to wage a tireless struggle to break people out of the ways of thinking, and acting, that in fact keep them chained to this system and contribute to perpetuating this system, in one form or another.

Fatalism, and defeatism—the belief that nothing can be done to change the terrible situation and bleak future humanity is now facing, that no positive radical change is possible—this way of thinking itself must be defeated, overcome both through sharp struggle and by bringing alive and popularizing the possibility for a radically different and better world, through revolution, which is grounded in a scientific, materialist approach to and understanding of the real world and the actual possibility for its positive radical transformation. Overall—and above all in terms of the basic masses, the bitterly oppressed people who must become the backbone of this revolution—overcoming this defeatism, and bringing about the necessary repolarization, must be carried out, and can only be achieved, through a powerful combination of fierce ideological struggle among the people, to win growing numbers to a scientific understanding of the situation we face and the actual solution to this, together with determined resistance against this oppressive system—all of which must be led to contribute to building up the forces and creating the political alignment necessary for revolution....

So, in the event of, and in the context of, a new civil war, the approach of the revolutionary forces, led by the new communism, would be to carry out the necessary political work, in combination with the actual fighting, to develop such a civil war into a revolution to achieve the goal of getting rid of this whole system, and replacing it with a radically different and emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Introduction: 

Some people have argued that an attempt to make an actual revolution, to overthrow the ruling system of capitalism-imperialism in this country, up against the powerful armed forces of this system, would be suicidal. This is something I spoke to, a number of years ago now, in the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Many people, including many who say they would like to see a radical change in society, insist that revolution is not possible because “they” are too powerful, and “people are too messed up.” Well, it is true that, shaped as they are by this system, the masses of people, in any part of society, don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses, when it comes to an understanding of how things really are, why they are the way they are, and what could and should be done about this. But this stands in sharp contradiction to another important truth—that millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of the “5 STOPS.” This is a contradiction that we have to go to work on, to move masses of people in the direction of the revolution that is needed to finally put a stop to those “5 STOPS” and the horrific conditions to which the masses of humanity are constantly subjected. [The 5 STOPS refers to five major social contradictions and forms of oppression and devastation that are built into this system of capitalism-imperialism and which can only be eliminated through a revolution to overthrow this system.]¹

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.² [emphasis added here]

This series of five articles speaks more fully to why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary now but why, with the right scientific approach, such a revolution could in fact have a real chance to succeed—and why anyone who really wants to see a radically different world, without all the horrors that are continually brought about, and the even greater horrors for humanity that are now threatened, by this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to be actively involved in working tirelessly, with scientifically based determination, for this revolution.

The following, from “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating”³ is the fourth in this series of selections from my talks and writings speaking to how to go about carrying out a revolution in this country, mobilizing millions of people, with the goal of actually defeating the violent enforcers of this system of capitalism-imperialism, abolishing this system altogether, and bringing into being a radically different, emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.⁴

Winning basic people, and in particular the youth, to revolution also requires making further critical breakthroughs in what I have called the “George Jackson question”—the problem sharply posed by George Jackson, a prisoner who became a militant revolutionary associated with the Black Panther Party during the upsurge of the 1960s, and who grappled deeply with the question of revolutionary possibility, before he was assassinated by the authorities. To a slave who does not expect to live beyond tomorrow, Jackson said, the idea of gradual change, and revolution in some far-off future, has no meaning and no appeal.

This takes on particular and special meaning in a rare time like this—a time when revolution could actually be possible, exactly not in some vague far-off future, but through the swirl of the sharpening events and conflicts that are happening right in this present time.

Here, again, is the decisive question of how much the organized forces of revolution are built up and have an impact on all this, in the direction of the revolution that is so urgently needed.

To appeal to masses of people, and in particular basic youth, the revolution must become a growing, organized, disciplined, bold and fearless force which, through its scientifically based method, its sweeping vision, its emancipating program and goals, and its actions, is an increasingly powerful pole that will attract these youth—and fighters for revolution from all parts of society.

There is plenty that needs to be done, and urgently, which requires real boldness and heart, in working for this revolution: powerfully spreading the word about this revolution, challenging people to get into this revolution, recruiting and organizing them into this revolution—going up against and breaking through all the bullshit that people are caught up in that goes against their own real interests—doing the work that needs to be done to transform people’s thinking, and their actions—standing up against the forces oppressing the people, waging the fight that needs to be waged against the atrocities of this system—doing all this to get ready, and to have the basis, to wage the all-out fight to finally overthrow this system, as soon as the necessary conditions for that have been brought into being.

And, as the revolution grows in this way: There is plenty that needs to be done, and urgently, which requires real boldness and heart, to stand up against the fascists, and any other oppressive force, in their moves to threaten and intimidate, brutalize and even murder people. Let me make clear that I am not calling for launching unprovoked and unjustified attacks on anybody; but there is a right, and a need—and there is the responsibility—to defend the people who are oppressed and brutalized under this system, and those who represent and stand for what is right, and are being attacked because of that.

In the six Points of Attention for the Revolution—which are basic principles that the Revolution Clubs, a key form of organization for this revolution, base themselves on and fight for—the final point is this:

We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.⁵

Yes, this is something very serious: going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way. And, yes, a big part of this is overcoming how people who are already messed over, in so many ways, by this system, get caught up in yet another way this system messes them up: fighting and killing each other. This needs to stop.

But it doesn’t need to just stop. People who have been caught up in this need to become part of something really positive—they need to become part of the forces for the revolution that is so urgently needed now.

The frustration and anger that so many feel, especially so many basic youth, because they can sense that life under this system has nothing good for them—that, from the time they are born, they are locked down and surrounded by forces that regard and treat them as alien objects of fear and hatred—and that those with power look at them as scum who deserve nothing more than a boot up the ass and a bullet in the brain—this frustration and anger needs to be redirected to fighting the system that treats them this way, and has robbed them, and so many like them throughout the world, of a decent life and a decent future, or any future at all.

Once more, there is plenty that calls, urgently, for great courage and boldness in doing what needs to be done: to be part of rising up against this system and getting ready to go all the way with revolution as soon as the time is right—and, as an important part of that, supporting, and defending, people who are constantly being subjected to unjust attacks on their rights and their very being.

There are the continuing attacks on people and movements that are rebelling against racist oppression....

There are attacks on school board members not only for adopting ... basic health measures but also for things like approving the teaching of some truth about the white supremacy that has always existed in this country, or allowing rights for trans people.

There are the threats, harassment and attacks on women seeking abortions, and on clinics and medical personnel working to provide those abortions, along with the escalating assault on the right to abortion by the Republican-fascist party, and those it has placed in the courts.

There are brutal and often murderous attacks on LGBT people.

There are continuing moves, including with the threat or use of violence, to once again prevent Black people and other oppressed people from even exercising what are supposed to be basic rights, such as voting. (With a scientific method and approach, it is both possible, and important, to actively oppose attempts to deny people the right to vote, and at the same time win people to see that their efforts need to go, not into voting for representatives of this system that is oppressing them, but working to build up the basis to overthrow this whole system.)

All these attacks on people and their rights need to be powerfully opposed, and people on the good side of this need to be actively protected and defended, where they are assaulted with threats and even outright physical attacks.

There is the need to prevent the police from brutalizing and just coldly murdering people. Let us remember what was said by some people who witnessed, and even recorded, the slow-motion vicious execution of George Floyd: They agonized over whether they should have done more, should have acted to stop this blatant assassination of a defenseless Black man. Now, again, what I am pointing to is consistent with point 6 of the six Points of Attention for the Revolution—and, in what I am saying here, I am not calling for launching an attack on anyone. But there is no right for anyone, including police, to just murder someone—and there is a right and responsibility to defend and protect people from unjust attacks on their rights, and on their very lives.

Imagine if, in these different kinds of situations, there were a force of hardcore revolutionaries, including basic youth, whose presence in a disciplined and organized formation made clear that no unjust attacks on people would be tolerated. But this must not just be imagined—it must be developed as one important part of the overall process of preparing for, and building the organized forces for, revolution.

This must be taken up in a serious, scientific way—not attempting, at any given point, to do what there is not yet the basis to do, but actively working to bring into being the conditions where what was not possible before becomes possible, as the organized ranks of revolution continue to grow and become steeled as a disciplined force. Taken up in this way, this can increasingly have dynamic effect—with “reverberations” and impact far beyond the immediate situation, attracting more people to this revolution... which, in turn, will make it possible to have even greater impact... and attract even larger forces.

All this is an important part of the overall approach that I have laid out in the course of this talk, which will enable what are today the small organized forces of this revolution to continue to grow—increasingly by leaps and bounds—in numbers, organized strength, and impact on society as a whole. This is what more and more people must be challenged, and enabled, to become part of.

This brings up another important dimension of working for revolution—and opposing the fascists as part of doing that: It is necessary to sharply expose and oppose—and fight to politically and practically overcome—the reality that for white supremacists and fascists generally the Second Amendment, the “right to bear arms,” has been regularly upheld and given the backing of the law and the courts, and the support of the police and other institutions of the state; while for Black people, other oppressed people, and generally those opposing the oppression and injustice of this system, the “right to bear arms,” even in self-defense, has been actively opposed and suppressed.

This is made graphically clear in the book by Carol Anderson focusing on the Second Amendment—The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. This book contains (yet more!) searing exposure of the depraved violence visited upon Black people throughout the history of this country, and speaks to how the “right to bear arms” has never applied to Black people, and instead there has been the perverse “right to kill” Black people, on the part of the powers-that-be and racist whites generally. This cannot be allowed to continue!

And it is not just around what is represented by “the Second Amendment” that a determined fight must be waged, but around the many ways in which the approach to rights that are supposedly guaranteed to people is applied in a highly unequal way, so that oppressed people, and those acting against the oppressive relations of this system, constantly find their rights attacked, “abridged,” or outright denied and suppressed. In waging this fight, it is important to recognize and, to the degree possible, take advantage of this contradiction: In reality, under this system of capitalism-imperialism, rights and liberties are determined, and limited, in accordance with what serves the interests of this system and its ruling class; but, we are constantly told that, under this system, there is “liberty and justice for all,” and the rulers of this system, or at least some of them, feel it is important to maintain this myth. Again, to the degree possible, this contradiction must be seized on, in waging the fight to defeat attempts by the enforcers of this system to violate what are supposed to be basic rights, in their moves to suppress people rising up against this system and its profound injustice.

But, most fundamentally, this fight must be waged with full awareness, a scientifically grounded understanding, of the essential nature of this system, with the orientation and goal of working toward the overthrow of this system and the dismantling of its relations and institutions of vicious exploitation and blood-soaked oppression and repression.

Once again, in order to make all this a reality, as this revolution is being brought to growing numbers of basic youth, and others, and they are being challenged to get into it, they need to be struggled with, hard, to get rid of the ways of thinking and acting that keep this system going. People need to “get their head right,” get their head out of their ass, and take up the scientific method and approach of the new communism to understanding reality, and transforming reality in a fundamental way, through revolution. This means not being just out for yourself, or those you can identify with in a narrow way (whoever that may be), but becoming revolutionaries in the fullest sense—revolutionary communists, emancipators of all humanity—becoming part of the organized and disciplined forces for this revolution, and nothing less.

As we say, to “everyone who has the heart to fight for something that is really worth fighting for: You need to be part of this revolution.”

Introduction:

Some people have argued that an attempt to make an actual revolution, to overthrow the ruling system of capitalism-imperialism in this country, up against the powerful armed forces of this system, would be suicidal. This is something I spoke to, a number of years ago now, in the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Many people, including many who say they would like to see a radical change in society, insist that revolution is not possible because “they” are too powerful, and “people are too messed up.” Well, it is true that, shaped as they are by this system, the masses of people, in any part of society, don’t know shit and have their heads up their asses, when it comes to an understanding of how things really are, why they are the way they are, and what could and should be done about this. But this stands in sharp contradiction to another important truth—that millions of people really do care about one or more, and many care about all, of the “5 STOPS.” This is a contradiction that we have to go to work on, to move masses of people in the direction of the revolution that is needed to finally put a stop to those “5 STOPS” and the horrific conditions to which the masses of humanity are constantly subjected. [The 5 STOPS refers to five major social contradictions and forms of oppression and devastation that are built into this system of capitalism-imperialism and which can only be eliminated through a revolution to overthrow this system.]⁶

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.⁷ [emphasis added here]

This series of five articles speaks more fully to why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary now but why, with the right scientific approach, such a revolution could in fact have a real chance to succeed—and why anyone who really wants to see a radically different world, without all the horrors that are continually brought about, and the even greater horrors for humanity that are now threatened, by this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to be actively involved in working tirelessly, with scientifically based determination, for this revolution.

The following excerpt from a presentation to a gathering of revcoms (revolutionary communists) in 2022 is the final installment in this series of selections from my talks and writings speaking to how to go about carrying out a revolution in this country, mobilizing millions of people, with the goal of actually defeating the violent enforcers of this system of capitalism-imperialism, abolishing this system altogether, and bringing into being a radically different, emancipating system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.⁸ The first part of this excerpt was previously posted at revcom.us in part one of this series.

As I said in the Dialogue with Cornel West: It is important that we are right, and righteous—it is important that we stand with the wretched of the earth and stand up against their oppression—but we have to win. We have to actually shatter the rule of this monstrous system, and bring something radically different and much better into being. Or else, we will at best “fight the good fight” but the horrors will continue, and get even worse.⁹

The sixth point of the Points of Attention for the Revolution says this: “We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.”¹⁰

I have highlighted the words “Because we are serious” in order to emphasize that this Point of Attention is not a declaration of some idealist pacifist notion that the struggle against this system can and must always remain non-violent. First of all, while we are against all violence against the people and among the people, and at this stage we do not initiate (and we do not encourage others to initiate) violence, at the same time we strongly recognize and uphold the right of people to defend themselves against unjust attacks. And, more strategically, we scientifically understand that: the fundamental source of violence in the world is this system of capitalism-imperialism, that by far the greatest perpetrators of unjust violence are the ruling classes of the capitalist-imperialist powers, most of all this country—and that the fundamental reason why the abolition of this system cannot be achieved peacefully is, once again, because of the nature of this system itself, and the fact that those who rule in it would never allow their system to be swept away without attempting to violently suppress and crush any such attempt.

This is what it means that we are serious about all this.

It is with this understanding, and this orientation, that we have to very seriously approach the question of how to actually win—win in the more immediate fight, historically speaking, to seize power—and win in a way that lays the basis for winning in the largest sense, with the goal of uprooting all oppression and exploitation, all over the world, bringing into being a communist world in which human beings can truly thrive with the fullest expression of their humanity.

This approach to “winning—and winning”—is an application of the principle that “the new communism thoroughly repudiates and is determined to root out of the communist movement the poisonous notion, and practice, that ‘the ends justify the means.’ It is a bedrock principle of the new communism that the ‘means’ of this movement must flow from and be consistent with the fundamental ‘ends’ of abolishing all exploitation and oppression through revolution led on a scientific basis.”¹¹

So, let’s get into how we could, and would need to, go about winning, when the conditions for that have been brought into being. The necessary strategic approach to this flows from the scientific understanding that the revolutionary forces could not win any contest in which they frontally took on the full force of a unified and cohesive existing state power. (I’m going to pause so people can think about this...)

The following, from “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating,” speaks to this:

Here, again, is something that is crucial to understand, something that is a hallmark of a serious, scientific approach to fighting to win, when the time comes: No matter how much the situation in society overall is changed, and no matter how much even the most powerful institutions of violent repression of this system are affected by this, with significant splits very likely occurring among them, the revolution will still be confronted with powerful armed forces of counter-revolution, from among sections of the official institutions, along with fascist “civilian forces” aligned with them. And it would be extremely unlikely that, particularly at the beginning phase, the revolutionary fighting forces would be able to confront and defeat those armed forces of counter-revolution by directly and frontally taking on anything close to their full force. That is why, in the doctrine and strategic orientation that has been developed to enable the revolutionary forces to fight to win, when the time is right, it is stressed that:

[T]he revolutionary forces would need to fight only on favorable terms and avoid decisive encounters, which would determine the outcome of the whole thing, until the balance of forces had shifted overwhelmingly in favor of the revolution.¹²

This doctrine and strategic orientation is spoken to in some depth and spelled out more fully in... Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, with additional thinking provided in my article “A Real Revolution—A Real Chance To Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution” (which also can be found at revcom.us). This sets the basic groundwork for how, when the necessary conditions have been brought into being, a revolutionary force, mobilizing masses of people, could actually approach the overthrow of this system in such a way as to effectively neutralize and eventually overcome what would almost certainly be, at the outset, the overwhelming power of the armed forces seeking to defeat and pulverize this attempt at the revolutionary seizure of power. It speaks to how, when the revolutionary situation has been ripened, revolutionary fighting forces, with the backbone drawn especially from youth who have been won hardcore to this revolution, could be organized and trained, and provided with the means to engage and defeat forces of counter-revolution in encounters, beginning on a small scale, which would be favorable for the revolutionary forces—and how, on that basis and through the course of doing that, they could grow in strength and win over growing numbers among those who had been part of the counter-revolutionary forces, and then finally defeat the remaining forces of counter-revolution.

In Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, I cited this important statement:

Rupert Smith, a British military officer and strategist, has noted that an insurrectionary force that is "defining the parameters of the conflict" has “by default presented an alternative force and power.” [Let’s stop and reflect on what that means.] This means that, if a revolutionary force is to a large degree determining the character of the conflict, it will be seen not as a bunch of “outlaws” but as a legitimate force contending against the old order; and this relates to why it is so important that the initial actions of the revolutionary fighting forces, accompanied by a bold declaration to the world, “make clear that there is an organized force determined to defeat the forces of the old order and bring into being a new, revolutionary system.” This would play a crucial part in demolishing the “superstitious awe” that people have toward the existing system, the nearly religious belief that this is the best, or at least the only, way that things could be, and that the power of this system is unchallengeable; it would further undermine the “legitimacy” and “authority” of the old order and its ruling class and the allegiance to it of broad sections of the population, and lay more of a basis for winning over even broader sections, including from within the fighting forces of the other side.

The approach of seeking and achieving victories, in more limited encounters, has as one of its key objectives the creation of an overall situation in which there will be increasing disintegration of the opposing side, and the defection of significant parts of that opposing side to the revolutionary side. This will be an important part of the process of bringing about a qualitative change in the “balance of forces,” to where the revolutionaries have gained the upper hand—a position from which they could then carry out the final defeat of the counter-revolution.

The following (from the article “A Real Revolution—A Real Chance To Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution”) stresses this:

There would need to be an added emphasis on the need for the all-out revolutionary fight to be country-wide in scope, from the beginning, or very quickly after the start, for the revolutionary forces to have organized strongholds of support in many different parts of the country—and to have the ability to act simultaneously, or in quick succession, in many different parts of the country (to effect a “popcorn” phenomenon of actions breaking out repeatedly and in quick succession all over the country)—in order to effectively counter the “encirclement and suppression” of the revolution by the counter-revolution, and in particular the ability of the counter-revolution to not only concentrate forces against but to actually occupy the areas that constitute the strongholds of support for the revolution (even while those strongholds are not yet being openly controlled and administered by the revolution), particularly in the early stages of this all-out fight.

This “popcorn” approach, keeping the enemy off balance, could also contribute to the disintegration of and defection from the other side.

To quote again from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution:

[A]nother point emphasized by Rupert Smith is important: it is not absolute force but “utility of force” that matters—not what any state, or other armed force, may have in its arsenal, but what it can actually utilize to its advantage in an armed conflict. One of the key operational principles of the revolutionary forces would be to wage the fight in such a way as to prevent the forces of the old order from being able to use their worst destructive power in a way that would be to their military as well as political advantage. At the same time, in the face of the barbaric actions that the old ruling forces would still carry out, it would be crucial for the revolutionary forces to “turn the barbaric actions of the enemy against him—to win greater forces for the revolution, including those who come over from the ranks of the enemy.”

Here it is worth repeating this crucial point:

It is also true that the ruling powers of this system, with the machinery of death and destruction they wield to enforce this system, are indeed very powerful. But a big part of people’s difficulty in imagining that we could actually defeat them is the inability to conceive of a situation that is radically different than the “normal” functioning of this system, a situation where, for large parts of society, the “hold” of the ruling class over people—its ability to control, manipulate, and intimidate them—is broken, or greatly weakened. Fundamentally, people cannot imagine this because they are not approaching things with a scientific outlook and method.

(And does it need to be said again that we must be bringing this scientific outlook and method to people?)

At the same time, “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating” emphasizes that the development of the basic doctrine and strategic approach for this all-out fight is an ongoing process. And that

[T]hroughout this period of preparing the ground, preparing masses of people and preparing the leading forces for this revolution, this basic doctrine and strategic approach for the all-out fight must be continually developed and made more “operational” in conception—that is, it must be further elaborated and further concretized, particularly in terms of what will constitute the actual pathways to victory—and, flowing from and serving that, what should be the specific nature and features of the encounters with the other side, particularly in the beginning phases, and (as far as possible) overall.

As spoken to earlier, a big factor in regard to all this is the real possibility of civil war between opposing sections of society, and how this could impact the key institutions of state power of this system. If such a civil war were to erupt—or even if the deepening divisions in society were moving more directly toward such a civil war—this could have a profound effect on such institutions, with the real prospect of splits among them, and even the possibility of the splitting apart of such institutions, with some parts siding with the fascists and others with those on the side opposed to the fascists.

This possibility is something that the basic doctrine and strategic approach for the revolutionary fighting forces would need to take into account and encompass. But, in order for the revolutionary forces to win over, and incorporate into their ranks, significant numbers from among the ruling and repressive institutions of this system, and to do so in a way that would actually maintain the emancipating character of the revolutionary forces, and strengthen them on that basis, it would be necessary for the revolutionary ranks to be tempered and steeled, not just in terms of fighting capacity [which is obviously very important] but in terms of their fundamental ideological and political orientation, as fighters for the emancipation of humanity.

Otherwise, even if you win over forces from the other side, given how they’ve been conditioned and trained, that could end up setting the terms of things on a very bad basis and lead to defeat in one form or another (either outright defeat at the hands of the enemy, or defeat in the sense that, even if military victory were somehow achieved, the way that was done would not lead to a radically new and better system, where the ongoing transformation of society, and ultimately the whole world, to uproot all exploitation and oppression, could be carried out).

Here is something else to take into account: What matters, as the all-out showdown approaches, is not only the size (in the millions) of the revolutionary people, but also its “composition,” involving masses of the most oppressed, especially youth, as well as large numbers of people from other sections of society; how that “composition” of the revolutionary people would relate to the composition of the opposing forces; and how, in turn, this relates to major social contradictions in the larger society (for example, racial, sexual and gender oppression).

To be more concrete, to break this down further: Out of their own interests, the rulers of this country have been compelled to draw large numbers of people from the ranks of the oppressed into their military, including women, Black people and Latinos. To the degree that these ranks would see, in the masses of revolutionary people, “people like themselves,” this would strengthen the potential ability of the revolutionary forces to disintegrate the forces seeking to suppress them and to cause significant defections from their ranks to the ranks of the revolution.

Of course, as pointed out in “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating,” this factor (the composition of the revolutionary people, in relation to that of the opposing forces) will not “automatically” translate into support for—and even defection over to—the side of the revolution; but this is a potentially favorable factor that would need to be consciously and concretely built on through the course of the all-out fight. And the potential for this would likely be even greater in the context of an actual civil war, with once again “the real prospect of splits,” among the institutions of violent enforcement of this system, “and even the splitting apart of such institutions, with some parts siding with the fascists and others with those on the side opposed to the fascists.”

In this connection, here is another crucial point: We, the revcoms and continually growing masses of people we are leading, must come to the fore in waging the fight against the fascists and do so on a revolutionary basis, not as defenders of bourgeois-democratic imperialism. This will have everything to do with the potential for a repolarization more favorable for the revolution, including in the actual all-out fight.

Through all this, it will be of great importance to be firmly based on, keep constantly in mind, and consistently apply the fundamental internationalist orientation and approach that is an essential part of the new communism. As I called attention to in “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating”:

This revolution will inevitably be influenced by, and will in turn significantly influence, what is happening in countries to the south (and north) of it, with which the USA has historically been closely interconnected, and which in many cases it has dominated and plundered.

(And here I want to mention a very important new book that has been published by the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico: La Esperanza Revolucionaria [Revolutionary Hope],¹³ which has also been translated into English by, and is available at, revcom.us.)

“Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating” goes on to make this important point:

And more generally, there will be the ways in which this revolution will be viewed, and responded to, by different forces, far beyond the present borders of this country. A serious fight for revolution in this country—this country—would have the effect of a powerful political earthquake, sending seismic shockwaves throughout the world. It is true that one reaction to this would be that oppressive governments and forces throughout the world would see this as a serious threat to their position and objectives, and there is a real possibility that there could be moves by some of these forces to aid, or join in, attempts to crush such a revolution. At the same time, such a revolution would shake awake and provide a powerful positive shock to literally billions of people everywhere, shattering the sense that there is no alternative to this terrible world. Overall, it would almost certainly contribute, in a very significant way, to a repolarization on a global scale. [Think about the effect, even on people who are now drawn to very bad trends, like Islamic fundamentalism. All of a sudden, things are completely different in the world—here is a real revolutionary, emancipatory struggle, with a prospect of actually winning, taking place in this country. Think of the effect on hundreds of millions of youth as well as on others throughout the world.]

All this would need to be taken into account by the leading forces of this revolution, as an important part of its strategic orientation and objectives.

Everything Depends on Bringing Forward a Revolutionary People

Having examined in some depth, and in a broad framework, the necessary foundation and basic roadmap for the revolution that is (more) possible—and urgently needed—now, we are back once more to this decisive point:

Everything depends on bringing forward a revolutionary people, from among the most bitterly oppressed, and all parts of society, first in the thousands and then in the millions, as a powerful revolutionary force, organized from the start and consistently with a country-wide perspective, impacting all of society and changing the terms of how masses of people see things and how every institution has to respond. Everything must be focused now on actually bringing forward and organizing this revolutionary force.¹⁴

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STATE OF EMERGENCY. Masses of people are demoralized and disoriented: robbed of real hope... chasing after deadly illusions... desperately clinging to things that are not real... indulging in trivial pursuits while stubbornly refusing to face the biggest reality... striving to turn degradation into capital... bitterly divided and beefing over bullshit... trying to make a mark by mocking and even murdering each other.

Chain, Chain, Chain—Chain of Foolishness

Today so many are caught up in the “3M & P.”

What is the “3M &P”? ME, me, me... MONEY, money, money... MISOGYNY and PATRIARCHY.

All ways of thinking and acting that reflect and reinforce this system of capitalism-imperialism that so viciously oppresses people, here and all over the world. All constantly promoted and pumped out in the “popular culture,” including in Hip Hop. (How this came to dominate Hip Hop—and how it has actually perverted this creative art form, which could be and should be a powerful voice for liberation—that is another story, which has everything to do with how things are ultimately controlled by the ruling powers that dominate overall in this sick system of capitalism-imperialism.)

These are real chains on people—especially those most terribly, murderously oppressed under this system.

Misogyny: Hating women and subjecting them to degradation in countless ways.

Patriarchy: Relations in which men are regarded as superior to women, and hold power over them, while LGBT people are treated as illegitimate and objects of hatred, abuse and scorn.

Then there is the BEB. What is BEB? Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit: the ridiculous idea that you change this system that viciously preys on you—and millions and billions of people like you, in this country and all over the world—by voting for this group or that group of bourgeois (capitalist) vultures.

And what is another big chain on people—supposedly easing but really perpetuating the pain of feeling hopeless and powerless to put an end to the suffering that so many are afflicted by today? 

Religion.

What is religion? Organized promotion of the belief that things have been created and are controlled by one or another god, which in reality does not exist and has been invented by people—with so many taught to believe that, if things are the way they are, it is “the will” of this supposed god.

As I have written before: “while upholding people’s right to religion—and uniting with religious people who take positive stands in the fight against oppression—it is crucially important to consistently and resolutely struggle for a scientific, not a religious, method and approach to reality, and wage a fierce, relentless fight against anti-scientific poison spread among the masses of people in the name of religion.”*

Learn to live in chains—bow down to those enforcing the chains, boast about and sing praises to the chains... or break all the chains.

That is the choice.

I know some people don’t like it when I say all this. But I am going to say it anyway, because as a revolutionary dedicated to the emancipation of humanity from every chain that holds people down, I recognize the responsibility to tell people the truth, even if it offends some, at first. And all you who also know this is true: you need to say it too—say it loud.

It is time, and long past time, to break these mental chains, to get in position to break all the chains of the modern-day slavery of this system of capitalism-imperialism. It is time to take up the scientific outlook, method, strategy and program, morality and values that can lead people to finally get free: the new communism. It is time to become revolutionary emancipators of humanity.

Hard truth, liberating truth.

__________

* The statement quoted above (indicated by the *) is from “GOD, PREJUDICE, OPPRESSION, TERROR AND THE WAY OUT OF THIS MADNESS...Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.” That article, and other important works by Bob Avakian—including those speaking to why this is a “rare time” when a real revolution has become more possible—can be found at revcom.us. [back]