Why? Because we live under a system, a capitalist system dominated by imperialism. This system of exploitation and oppression is the root cause of so much unnecessary suffering of the people, so many crimes, so many atrocities. Globally, this system, capitalism-imperialism, is leading humanity and many other species toward the precipice of potential extinction, whether through rampant environmental destruction or a disastrous nuclear war between major imperialist powers like the United States, China, and Russia, while perpetuating crimes against humanity everywhere, such as the genocide of the Palestinians. In Mexico, it has left a growing bloody toll of murders, disappearances, femicides, rapes, trafficking in women, poisoning of nature and human populations, macrocrime, and other completely unnecessary and intolerable horrors.
This revolution is not only urgently necessary, it is also possible. We are fighting seriously now for this revolution. If you’re not yet participating in this struggle, you need to understand —many more people need to understand—what a real revolution is, why this revolution is possible, and the radical liberating transformations possible with this revolution. This is what we’ll address here.
We must face the reality of the world we live in, and not remain on the sidelines, locked in the narrow struggle to “get ahead,” hoping the crimes and horrors that surround us will not touch us. By understanding that a much better world is possible, you can and must open your mind, open your heart to the people, and join the struggle for a new socialist society of hope, liberation, and community.
2. A Real Revolution Overthrows This System and Creates Another, Radically Different and Much Better System
Since the fundamental problem is the system itself, a real revolution is needed to put an end to this system. How do we put an end to the system? We must overthrow and destroy the current state, which represses and murders people to defend this system of exploitation and oppression. In its place, the very revolutionary struggle of millions of people will forge a radically different new revolutionary state that will promote, support, and defend the struggle to end all forms of exploitation and oppression.
The imperialist-dominated capitalist economy must also be eliminated, which superexploits and impoverishes people, destroys the environment, and wages a bloody war against the people in its relentless pursuit of maximum profits. A victorious revolution will confiscate the economic assets of big national and foreign capitalists and pave the way for the voluntary collectivization of economic activity by peasants, small business owners, and merchants. This will create a new socialist economy dedicated to meeting the needs of all people, overcoming all forms of inequality, exploitation, and oppression, and driving forward the world revolution.
By breaking these chains, the creativity of millions, now suppressed or distorted in most cases, will be unleashed, criticizing the putrid culture and selfish, racist, and macho ideas that currently prevail, and giving rise to the blossoming of a new culture and diverse, vibrant, revolutionary, and inspiring ideas.
In short, this socialism born of a real revolution will create a radically different and far better new economic system, a new political system, and a new culture. It will be a great liberating advance for the people of Mexico and, at the same time, will support, give impetus to, and inspiration for the revolutionary struggle of people around the world. This revolution is part of the worldwide struggle for communism, a society without classes, exploitation, or oppression, and the emancipation of all humanity.
A real revolution is needed, nothing less, unlike the various false illusions promoted as supposed “alternatives,” which we will address below.
3. A Real Revolution Is Needed, Not a So-Called “Ideological Revolution”
The so-called “ideological revolution” influences a significant number of people in various forms and to varying degrees. The basic idea is that, to achieve fundamental change, all that’s needed is to change people’s ideas, whether in the family, at school, or in society as a whole. This is a false illusion that traps people in continuing to suffer under the current perverse system. This is what it leads to, regardless of the often progressive intentions of people influenced by this idea.
It’s true that changing people’s ideas is enormously important. In fact, transforming people’s thinking is a fundamental part of the revolutionary process, both before and after overthrowing this system and forging another radically different system. But first, changing people’s ideas to what other ideas and to achieve what? It must be nothing less than upholding the emancipation of all humanity, and not simply the interests of one group or country against others. It must be to serve the people and be caretakers of the environment, rather than merely seeking “something for me and my people.”
On the other hand, if the capitalist economy continues to operate with its ruthless competition of everyone against everyone, if the mainstream media, education, government, and other institutions are left in the hands of the ruling classes, which are the ideas that will prevail? No matter how hard you try to change people’s ideas, capitalist institutions and the very functioning of the capitalist economy and the relationships between people it engenders will continue to impose the selfish, racist, misogynistic, and other ideas that are inherent to the economic, political, and social relations of the current reactionary system. Just think of the daily competition to get into a good school, get a job, or outsell the competition. The very operation of the system instills selfishness and a “me first” attitude. Not to mention the dominant culture that the most important thing is to “get ahead,” without concern for others, to “stand out” above all others, that men must “conquer” women, and other values that are inherent to the economic and social relations of the current system.
Finally, if you have the audacity to act according to ideas that clash even with aspects of how the current system works, what happens? The capitalist state, its Army, National Guard, and police, come to punish, repress, or kill you. This can be direct, like the cowardly murder of student teacher Yanqui Kothan by police from the Morena [political party] government of the state of Guerrero, to serve as a warning to all those who dare to fight for something as basic as truth and justice for the 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers who disappeared in a joint operation by the Army, police, and organized crime. Or it can be indirect, like the hitmen hired to kill Samir Flores after he was threatened by the federal government delegate for opposing the ecocidal thermoelectric plant in the state of Morelos (a project that former Mexican president López Obrador [AMLO] promised to stop during his campaign, and later imposed by force). The large number of social activists, journalists, and defenders murdered year after year bear witness to the consequences of acting according to more progressive ideas under this system.
Special mention of, and genuine contempt for, must be made regarding the so-called “revolution of consciences,” a phrase commonly used by members of Morena (the National Regeneration Movement). In practice, it boils down to parroting what the president says during his or her morning press conferences and turning a blind eye to the accumulation of crimes against the people and the destruction of the environment. All of this continues under the governments of the so-called “Fourth Transformation” [the current nationally ruling party coalition platform], as well as under the despicable electoral parties of the bourgeois “opposition.”
Transforming the way people think is essential to achieving a fundamental, radical change, but it must be an integral part of the process of making a real revolution. The so-called “ideological revolution” is like thinking that a person drowning in the sea only needs to change their ideas, shouting “Cheer up, you can do it.” It’s not wrong to try to encourage them, but you have to change the real material situation, by throwing them a life preserver and helping them out of the water. That’s how it is. We fight to transform people’s thinking as an integral part of the struggle to change everything, so that humanity doesn’t continue to drown in the sea of this outdated system, but rather has new life and hope in a world we all want to live in.
4. Nothing Fundamental Is Going to Change Through Elections Under the Current System
Mexico’s recent experience also illustrates that it is not possible to change anything fundamental through elections. There was genuine jubilation among many, and hope for real change when the bloodthirsty criminals of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN) were finally removed from power with the triumph of López Obrador and Morena in 2018. But what happened? He promised to return the military to their barracks, but instead imposed the greatest militarization of Mexican society in history. He preached “hugs, not bullets,” while the number of murders and disappearances reached the highest level of any recent six-year presidential term, and to top it all off, he tried to “disappear the disappeared,” attempting to erase them from the official record. They say “we don’t repress,” while, under AMLO and [current Mexican president] Sheinbaum, the Army, National Guard, and police continue to murder citizens and migrants, as we have extensively documented on our website. (See, among other articles, “Nuevas masacres militares: con ejecuciones y militarización, SÍ son lo mismo” [New Military Massacres: With Executions and Militarization, They ARE One and the Same Thing]).
They claim “we are not the same as the neoliberals,” while carrying out the ethnocidal and ecocidal megaprojects that previous neoliberal governments only promised, such as the so-called “Maya” Train and the Isthmus Interoceanic Corridor, among many others. They rightly label the bourgeois opposition as “traitors,” while Morena also follows Washington’s orders, even calling for “collaboration” with the fascist Trump administration to “contain,” repress, deport, and murder migrants. In fact, current Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s six-year term began with the military murder of six migrants in Chiapas and another two in Chihuahua. They maintain many of the neoliberal policies of the past and even boast of achieving high levels of imperialist foreign investment and high profits for big business. Sheinbaum has even refused to repeal the 2007 ISSSTE [social security] Law, which she herself called “neoliberal” and promised to repeal during her campaign, thus condemning teachers and others to a miserable retirement. She is trying to cover this up with another cynical promise: Welfare funds, which will not be forthcoming.
Yes, they’re throwing more money at their “social programs” to get people to support them, but fundamentally, nothing has changed. In fact, for many people, especially where there is “co-governance” with organized crime, the situation has gone from bad to worse.
And why? Simply because AMLO, Sheinbaum, and Morena are a bunch of lying frauds like all the politicians in this system? No, not only because of this. The problem is deeper. Because, no matter how honest and well-intentioned a person is, upon coming to power, they have to face the reality of how the capitalist system dominated by imperialism works and must function. They have to seek more foreign investments and loans from the imperialists, they have to foster the scandalous profits of big national and foreign businessmen, or the economy will collapse. They have to respond to the demands, especially of U.S. imperialism. And they have to defend the system in which a few people exploit and oppress the vast majority, or everything would become chaos.
As in the example mentioned by Bob Avakian, author of The New Communism, what would happen in this system if it were declared that everyone had the right to eat, so anyone could go to the supermarket and take whatever they needed without paying? Obviously, there would be chaos, and soon there would be no products in the supermarket, because who is going to produce them for free? The productive capacity exists to feed everyone healthily, not just in Mexico, but throughout the world, and yet, under this system, many go hungry, many suffer from malnutrition. Only under a different system, under true socialism, will it be possible to guarantee something as fundamental as the right to eat.
Thus, it is not possible to change anything fundamental through elections, because even if you have the best intentions, once you come to power, you find that you must act in accordance with the necessary functioning of the current economic and political system. Therefore, as Marx said, bourgeois elections are, at best, nothing more than the right to choose which representatives of the ruling class will oppress and repress the people in the coming period. The change that people so urgently need will not come from elections under this system but from a real revolution that gets rid of the current system and gives birth to a radically different and much better system: Socialism guided by the scientific understanding of the new communism.
5. It Is Not Possible to “Change the World Without Taking Power”; It Is Necessary to Destroy the Current State Power and Forge a New, Radically Different, Revolutionary State Power
Nor is it possible to “change the world without seizing state power” by generalizing alternative projects of autonomy, self-management, self-defense, or other such projects under the current system. Ultimately, “seizing state power” within the current system, whether through elections or other means, will not change anything for the reasons we have already pointed out. Nothing fundamental can change without destroying, shattering, the current state power, that is, the capitalist state, getting rid of the entire current system, and creating a radically different system through a real revolution.
Supporters of the position of “changing the world without taking state power” through alternative projects often cite the experience of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) as an example, although Zapatista leaders do not use that phrase. What does that experience show us? The peasant and indigenous uprising of 1994 inspired millions, although the EZLN’s program would not actually take us beyond the current capitalist system, for reasons we have explained elsewhere. (See, for example, Hace falta tumbar el sistema capitalista, no tratar de “democratizarlo” [See an English translation here: We need to overthrow this system, not try to “democratize” it], available on our website.) However, within a few days, the EZLN halted the uprising and entered into negotiations with the government. The government then betrayed even the limited demands it had accepted and signed in the San Andrés Accords.
With monetary and other support from various forces in Europe and elsewhere, the EZLN has achieved certain partial changes in its limited territory of greatest influence in Chiapas, and we can and should learn from that experience. However, the greatest lesson is the narrow limits to change within the current system, without overthrowing the capitalist system. Although the Zapatistas have done much to avoid antagonizing the government, what has happened? All governments of all electoral parties have mounted, including with the advice of U.S. imperialism, a systematic campaign of harassment, repression, and murder of the Zapatista rank and file, using the Army, the National Guard, police, paramilitaries, and, especially more recently, drug traffickers’ hitmen. This reactionary repressive campaign continues today. We must denounce and fight against this repression against the EZLN. It must also be recognized that this illustrates the need to overthrow the state and the entire current system, and not just try to create “alternatives” within the confines of the current repressive system.
Attempts at “self-defense groups,” “community police,” “autonomous municipalities,” and other alternative projects often represent positive efforts by the people to fight and resist the onslaught of the current system of exploitation and death. However, they have faced similar counterinsurgency campaigns, again from all electoral parties, because they all represent and defend the same capitalist system dominated by imperialism.
While these attempts to achieve certain partial changes in one or another circumscribed place remain under siege by the dominant system, or are, in fact, suppressed or co-opted, the deadly capitalist system continues to ruin lives, crush hopes, impose misery, disappearances and murders, as well as destroy the environment in Mexico as a whole.
Regardless of the intentions of those who promote the possibility of “changing the world without taking state power” or, in general, who deny the need to overthrow the state and the entire capitalist system through a real revolution, this position also condemns the people to continue suffering unnecessarily under this system.
It’s time to discard the false illusions of some “ideological revolution” or “revolution of consciences,” of electoral “change,” or of “changing the world without taking state power,” limiting ourselves to “alternatives” that, at best, are nothing more than Band-Aids applied to the cancerous wounds of a rotten system. For the people, for humanity, the radical surgery of a real revolution is necessary. We must support every just struggle and mobilize the masses in key struggles against state power. But on their own, these struggles, although just and necessary, are at best able to wrest a bit of land or other concessions. Sooner or later, they are attacked and ultimately defeated or subverted by the system if they are not linked to the struggle for a real revolution. Instead of confining people to the necessary but limited immediate struggles to survive under this criminal system, we must fight against state power and transform the people for revolution.
6. This Revolution Is Possible Because More and More People Can No Longer Live as Before, and the Ruling Classes Face Increasing Difficulties in Continuing to Govern as Before
It’s common to hear the opinion that revolution isn’t possible because “look at where the people are at.” But look at where the people are really at! Entire communities are displaced, uprooted, and destroyed, whether by the government’s deadly megaprojects, by the devastating mining operations of big national and foreign capitalists, or by organized crime, which increasingly takes over the national territory in collusion with authorities at all levels and all electoral parties. Young people in many places face the cruel choice of either being forced into the mafia, fleeing with their families elsewhere, or daring to try to confront, using community police or other means, the infernal triple alliance of the government, organized crime, and big business. Fighters, defenders, and honest journalists are being murdered or disappeared left and right. With each new six-year presidential term, the bloody toll of murders, disappearances, trafficking of women and children, “co-governance” with drug traffickers, extortion, and other abominations increases.
What’s more, in the face of this situation, thousands of people are struggling, even with great courage. Many family members persist in the fight to find their missing loved ones and to expose the criminal complicity of the authorities, despite the threats and the murder of several mothers and other searchers for missing people. The courage and determined, and sometimes even armed, resistance of many indigenous communities and other peasants in defense of their territories, water, forests, and crops against the death-dealing megaprojects of the government and big business, as well as the terror, forced recruitment, and extortion that organized crime attempts to impose in collusion with the government and big business, is inspiring. A sea of green and purple periodically fills the streets with the fury and joy of women fighting to end femicides, for the full right to abortion, and to end patriarchy. Family members, students, teachers, activists, and others continue to fight for Truth and Justice for the 1968 Tlaltelolco Plaza massacre, the Dirty War, Acteal, El Charco, Ayotzinapa, and other crimes against the people, which not only remain unpunished, but the government has even rewarded several of the responsible criminal military officers. Many people across Mexico have taken to the streets to protest the genocide in Palestine, while the current so-called “leftist” government refuses to break relations with Israel or even clearly call out the genocide. Thousands of people are fighting even bravely and selflessly, and it is not right to turn our backs on them and justify our own apathy with the apparent “apathy” of the majority of the people. In reality, the problem for many people is not simply “apathy,” but that they do not see or are not convinced of how they could really change the situation.
The truth is that millions of people in Mexico desperately need a revolution, and more and more people cannot continue living as before. This is an aspect of the potential unfolding of an unevenly developing revolutionary situation that requires further research and analysis. This is very acutely expressed in large areas of the countryside, in many small and medium-sized cities, and in the “slums” surrounding large cities. A striking example of both this potential revolutionary situation and the revolutionary potential of the masses is the repeated emergence in various parts of Mexico, primarily in the countryside, of various forms of “self-defense groups,” “community police,” and other forms of armed popular resistance. These are not in themselves revolutionary struggles aimed at overthrowing the system, and in the face of vicious aggressions by the government, drug traffickers, and business leaders, many end up crushed or co-opted by the system. However, they very concretely express that conditions in significant parts of Mexico are forcing the masses to arm themselves as the only viable means of resistance to the atrocities they are experiencing.
Though the revolutionary potential of the masses has not yet manifested itself in the emergence of a revolutionary people of millions, this is not because the majority of people are content with the situation. Even a significant portion of the population—millions—thinks a revolution is needed, although their understanding of what this means varies greatly, and they do not yet see how this would be possible.
So that this feeling, this desire, this need can be transformed into a conscious material force, into an ever stronger movement for revolution, a growing core of revolutionary communists must go out to the people, to debate and convince them of the truth that we don’t have to continue living, suffering, and dying like this, and to organize them now for a real revolution. It requires going against the suffocating dogma of the reformist “left,” which insists that revolution is a “last resort” in a far-off future when the people “are up to their necks in water.” They refuse to see that, for millions, the water has already risen far beyond their necks. Many are on the verge of drowning or have already drowned in the deadly waters of this system. They don’t need the reformist leadership so prevalent on the so-called “left,” which refuses to face the reality we are living in. They need revolutionary leadership capable of scientifically analyzing the real facts that make revolution possible and convincing more and more people of that reality. And one of those facts, as we’ve already pointed out, is that more and more people can no longer live as they did before or, quite simply, are no longer with us.
The other aspect of the potential unfolding of an unevenly developing revolutionary situation, not in some distant future, but in the midst of what we are experiencing now, is that the ruling classes are facing increasing difficulties governing Mexico. This is partly expressed in the petty contention between the highly discredited bourgeois parties—PAN, PRI, and PRD—and the bourgeois parties of the so-called “Fourth Transformation.” However, it is even more acutely expressed in the violent conflicts between one or another group of big capitalists, including their political representatives, allied with one or another organized crime cartel. The multimillionaire leaders of the main cartels already constitute part of the ruling classes, that is, the big national and foreign capitalists and rural landowners. They exercise local power or “co-government” in more and more areas of Mexico. They are intertwined and colluding with several so-called “legal” capitalists and with authorities at all levels, not only in Mexico but also in the United States. The clashes between different groups—both “legal” and “illegal”— of the ruling classes are most openly expressed in the fact that they can no longer hold elections without a pile of massacred candidates and their supporters, as well as in the bloody wars waged between the various cartels, often allied with one or another part of the state, and “legal” businessmen. The supposed actions of the state against organized crime have nothing to do with actually eliminating this scum, but rather with favoring one or another opposing group or showing the public that “something is being done.”
Both the investigations into the Ayotzinapa state crime by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) and the “Guacamaya Leaks” documents show that the Mexican Army has clearly identified the criminal gangs and their members, but curiously, it can only find one or another, according to their interests. In reality, organized crime is so integrated with all three levels of government and the ruling classes in general that the authorities are neither able nor willing to truly combat it. Now the Trump fascist administration has pressured the Mexican government—always willing to “collaborate” (as Sheinbaum herself says) with that fascist regime—to mount more operations against certain sectors of organized crime. The goal of the U.S. fascists is also not to wipe out organized crime, but rather to subject it—and Mexico in general—to more direct control by U.S. imperialism. There is a whole history of collusion between the U.S. government and organized crime, of which the “Iran-Contragate” scandal is only the most publicized case, in which the United States used drug trafficking to supply arms to counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua.
All of this is fueling conflicts and violent clashes between different capitalist forces (both “legal” and “illegal,” although it is increasingly difficult to distinguish one from the other). They are causing increasing risks and instances of ungovernability, such as the recent armed attacks in Sinaloa, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Guanajuato, and even the recent murder of two close associates of the mayor of Mexico City. Although the rampant growth of organized crime presents significant problems for the revolution, it is drowning Mexico in a growing sea of blood, disrupting the daily lives of millions and creating increasing conditions of ungovernability. These internal struggles within the ruling classes are opening cracks in the power structure through which the suppressed revolutionary potential of the masses could erupt with enormous force.
The unfolding of a potential unevenly developing revolutionary situation in Mexico is deeply intertwined with the current crisis in the United States. The clash is growing between the Trump administration’s attempts to consolidate fascism—the open dictatorship of the ruling class—and the struggle of a growing number of people against this, notably in the widespread protests across the U.S. in defense of immigrants and against the consolidation of a fascist regime. As Bob Avakian, author of The New Communism, has profoundly and scientifically analyzed, this situation entails both the enormous danger of the consolidation of fascism in the U.S. and the possibility of revolution —yes, revolution!—in the most powerful imperialist country in the world. And the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Revcoms are fighting against all odds both to remove the fascist Trump from power and to make such a liberating revolution. Since U.S. imperialism is the strongest bulwark of support for the system of exploitation and oppression in Mexico, this deep conflict across the Rio Bravo/Grande also opens up both enormous dangers and enormous revolutionary possibilities here.
U.S. imperialism has always mercilessly superexploited, oppressed, and plundered the Mexican people, as it does against other peoples around the world. The consolidation of fascism in the U.S. would take all this to another level of brutality and horror, as reflected in Trump’s constant characterization of Mexicans and oppressed immigrants in general as “murderers and rapists,” as well as the increasing aggression and espionage against Mexico by his government, despite the collaborationist Sheinbaum’s assurances that this is “cooperation.”
On the other hand, the advance of the “Trump Must Go Now!” movement by the Refuse Fascism organization, as well as the struggle for a real revolution in the United States, encourages and propels revolutionary possibilities in Mexico, as well as the advance of the movement for revolution in Mexico encourages and propels the struggle for revolution in the U.S. This is why it is so important to forge revolutionary unity among the oppressed people on both sides of the border against the big capitalists and their governments in both countries.
In short, revolution is possible in Mexico, not at some distant time, but in the times we live in, because more and more people can no longer live as before, the ruling classes are finding increasing difficulties in continuing to govern as before, and the political crisis in the United States is also exacerbating all of this. However, it is not possible for all this to lead to a real revolution without forging a growing revolutionary communist leadership core guided by scientific understanding, and not by the common “wisdom” of the majority of the so-called “left.”
7. The Possibility of Revolution Arises from a Revolutionary Situation Caused by the Contradictions and Crises of the System, Not from the Slow Accumulation of Struggles for Reforms
Contrary to what we’ve been arguing, the overwhelming majority of this so-called “left” sees revolution as something vague and distant, at best a buzzword to add to their speeches for a select audience. Why? Because they don’t approach the question scientifically, but rather with a reformist approach incapable of seeing beyond the existing oppressive system. They imagine (or they have been wrongly taught to think) that revolutions are the product of a growing mass movement for immediate demands, and since there is currently no high tide in mass struggle, they conclude that the prospects for a revolution are very remote. This is the dogma of all the phony “communists” of the various groups that identify themselves with the acronym “PCM” [Mexican Communist Party], the multiple permutations of Trotskyists, and even many anarchists, among others.
Revolutions do not happen this way, through the gradual accumulation of forces in the daily struggle for demands. Revolutions are the product of the intensification of the central contradictions of the system, which give rise to the emergence of a revolutionary situation. This was the case with the Russian Revolution, which occurred amidst the deep contradictions of the system that burst out in the First World War. At first, the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary opposition to the imperialist war was more isolated and even faced stone-throwing from the patriotic masses, but with the intense sharpening of all the contradictions during the course of the war, the conditions for the triumph of the socialist revolution were created. In the case of the Chinese revolution, the existence of an unevenly developing revolutionary situation made it possible to wage a protracted people’s war from the countryside until a shift in the international situation in the wake of the Second World War made it possible to seize power throughout the country. (For a deeper analysis of these experiences and their relevance today, we highly recommend Bob Avakian’s excellent pamphlet, Revolution: Major Turning Points and Rare Opportunities, available at revcom.us.) As we discuss in more detail in Revolutionary Hope, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, while not a socialist revolution, also did not happen as the phony revolutionaries imagine. It erupted with the intensification of the exploitation and oppression of the peasants by the haciendas [large rural land holdings] and imperialist domination amidst a situation of apparent relative apathy among the masses.
No one is as blind as those who refuse to see. No one willing to open their eyes can deny the reality that this system is creating an increasingly desperate situation for millions of people. Nor can it be denied that the enormous bloodbath of murders and disappearances created by criminal gangs of hitmen, the Army, the National Guard, the police, and imperialist agents expresses growing conditions of ungovernability. But the phony reformist and counterrevolutionary “revolutionaries” and “communists” want to blame the masses for their own lack of revolutionary will. Their position, in essence, is that “when the masses rise up in revolutionary struggle, we too will recognize that revolution is possible.” No, no, no, no. A hundred times no! The masses make revolutions, but, as Marx pointed out, revolutions are not a product of what people think or do at a given moment, but of what the upheavals of the system force them to confront—as long as a leading revolutionary force exists capable of leading the struggle of millions to victory. And in the case of socialist revolution, such a leading force must be guided by a correct scientific understanding of the problem and the solution, among other things.
There is no doubt that, in the current situation, this is not easy. A lot of debate and struggle among the people is needed to convince even the most revolutionary-minded people that a real revolution is necessary, possible, and liberating. Why? Among other reasons, because the owners of the capitalist system obviously have a strong interest in convincing people that such a revolution would be very bad and even impossible, while viciously repressing even struggles for the most basic needs. Also because the prevailing phony “left” suppresses the revolutionary potential of the people, lulling them with empty phrases about a supposed “revolution” in the distant future. They preach that we must limit ourselves now to fighting for crumbs under this system. If this deeply flawed position is followed, that future will actually be an uninhabitable planet at best.
Furthermore, the potential unevenly developing revolutionary situation is not readily apparent; this requires science. This requires the science of the new communism to penetrate beneath the enormous power and very real repressive force of the system and realize that the very crises of the system and the internal struggles among the powers that be open cracks of ungovernability through which the revolutionary potential of the exploited and oppressed masses could burst forth. This requires science to penetrate beneath the surface and see that the situation experienced by increasing millions is not simply tragedy and tears—which it is, by far—but also contains an intensification of the revolutionary potential of the masses, capable of exploding with tremendous force, even though the people themselves do not yet realize their enormous potential revolutionary force.
It takes science to penetrate beneath the surface, the appearances, and analyze the features and intensification of the potential unevenly developing revolutionary situation we have highlighted here. This requires a revolutionary communist nucleus armed with and applying that science. And this requires taking out to the people this scientific understanding that revolution is possible, not in the distant future, but in the times in which we live. This must be taken to the people, and it must be debated, fought for, and more and more people must be convinced and organized now for revolution.
8. The People Must Be Organized for Revolution, and Not Be Trapped in Struggles for Immediate Economic Demands That They Are Already Waging
We’ve just written that the people must be organized for revolution, and we can already hear the chorus of complaints from the so-called opportunist “revolutionaries”: “It’s not possible to talk to people about revolution. They can’t understand it.” Nonsense! Have they ever tried? We have. We’ve talked about revolution and the new communism, we’ve debated this with peasants and intellectuals, with day laborers and students, with merchants, and mothers and fathers searching for disappeared loved ones. In short, with all kinds of people. Because a real revolution can only be the product of the conscious struggle of the people. And we’ve found that it’s possible to talk to all kinds of people about a real revolution. Some are against it, others think it’s not possible, and they raise all kinds of doubts and questions. But there’s no one who can’t “understand.” Even the most oppressed people, whom the system has denied every opportunity, have their opinions about revolution and ask us fundamental questions: “How will it be possible to defeat the Mexican Army, let alone a Yankee intervention?” “I’ve been told that communism is bad, because if you have two cows, they’ll take one away from you.” “After the revolution, won’t it be more of the same thing, like in Nicaragua?” “I don’t see that this is possible now, given where the people are at.” And many more questions.
The phony “revolutionaries” despise the people, claiming they “can’t understand.” They blame the masses for their own backwardness. They themselves don’t want to grapple with the real problems of making revolution, because in reality, they don’t seek a real revolution but rather a movement for reform within the suffocating confines of this system, sometimes exalted with “revolutionary” rhetoric. So they repeat over and over again the old, worn-out dogma of the opportunist “left” for decades past and all over the world: “The masses must be organized to fight for their most heartfelt demands,” by which they mean the economic struggles that, in many cases, the masses themselves are already waging.
They are not concerned that this has never led to a real revolution. The so-called “Leninists” are not concerned that this economistic position is precisely the erroneous position Lenin polemized against in his famous work What Is To Be Done? And without a thoroughgoing repudiation of this reformist dogma, the Bolshevik revolution would never have triumphed.
Economic and other demands for justice are just and should be supported and encouraged. Sometimes they can even have a significant political impact, as in the case of the recent teachers’ struggle for a fair retirement, which made it abundantly clear that the Morena government is on the side of the Afores (annually funded pension fund managers), the banks, and the capitalist system, and against even the most basic rights of the people, despite the current ruling party’s constant use of the words “people, people, people.” Struggles for reform are necessary and can sometimes play an important role, but they must be subordinated, as Lenin said, as the part is subordinated to the whole in the struggle for revolution and socialism.
However, what the masses most need from true revolutionaries, from revolutionary communists, is not simply to help organize the struggles that people already know how to wage and are currently waging. What they most need is the scientific political understanding that this system has denied them and that they are not going to find out simply in the daily struggle for immediate demands. They urgently need to understand the profound truth that we do not have to continue suffering under this outdated system that is leading all of humanity toward the precipice of extinction, or at least the end of civilization as we know it. They need a basic scientific understanding of why the problem is the capitalist system and why the solution is a real socialist revolution. They need to understand why such a revolution is not only urgently necessary but also possible, and what we must do to ultimately win.
It’s not that people can’t understand these questions. It’s that we revolutionary communists need to assume our responsibility to the people and to humanity to bring them this understanding, to wrangle and debate with them in a good way, and to organize them for revolution. In doing so, we have found that this struggle is not easy. It requires a lot of struggle and debate about the colossal garbage pit of wrong ideas promoted by the capitalist system in general; by the supposedly “left” capitalist party that is now in power and which has dedicated itself to trying to co-opt, subjugate, or destroy people’s movements; and by the motley opportunist supposedly “revolutionary” and “communist” groups that predominate among what passes for “the left” in Mexico. It is not an easy struggle; it is a struggle going against the current, but it is possible to win over and organize a significant minority for revolution now.
Organizing these people now for revolution is urgent, because a real revolution doesn’t happen simply because a revolutionary situation arises. The vast majority of revolutionary situations don’t lead to revolution. They either fizzle out due to a lack of revolutionary leadership, as in the case of the Arab Spring in 2010, or they never get out of the capitalist-imperialist system due to the leadership’s wrong orientation, as in the case of the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979. If you wait for a revolutionary situation to mature before organizing people for revolution, you would miss the opportunity to make it and condemn people to continue needlessly suffering the horrors of the current system.
For people to rise up in revolutionary struggle, for a real and liberating revolution to triumph, not only is a revolutionary situation necessary. A revolutionary communist nucleus based on the revolutionary science of the new communism is also necessary, strong enough and linked to the masses of people to fully awaken their revolutionary potential and lead the difficult struggle, ultimately encompassing millions, to triumph in a real revolution.
We are organizing people for revolution now by applying a dialectic, an interrelationship, between two aspects: * boldly spreading the new communism through revolutionary exposures of the system and the promotion of revolutionary communist theory and analysis; and * mobilizing the masses in struggle against key crimes of the system that demonstrate its reactionary and outdated nature, such as the struggle for truth and justice for Ayotzinapa and all the disappeared persons, the struggle against femicide and for the right to abortion, the struggle against genocide in Palestine, and many other struggles in which we have participated alongside many others. In these struggles, it is essential to fight to raise people’s consciousness, as well as their combativeness and opposition to this criminal system, thus also serving to strengthen the struggle for a real revolution.
Also, and very importantly, we are organizing people into the Revolution Movement, which is a mass revolutionary organization united around its six Points of Orientation, where people can contribute in various ways to furthering the movement for revolution while critically debating and learning about the new communism. And we promote and build the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico, as the revolutionary communist nucleus needed now in the struggle to forge a new type of revolutionary communist party led by and concretely applying the new communism developed by Bob Avakian.
9. We Are Forging a Revolutionary Communist Core Guided by Bob Avakian’s New Communism, Combating the Snarky Attacks by the Haters
We are seriously fighting to organize people for a real revolution and to forge the growing revolutionary communist nucleus that is needed. We are not going to lie to you, we are but a few people. Many more people need to join in and contribute their ideas, their creativity, their hearts, and their efforts to this struggle because there is no other real way out for the exploited and oppressed masses, nor for humanity.
By organizing people for a real revolution, the most important thing is that the guiding understanding be truly correct and scientific, that it correspond to the reality of the current world and how it can truly be changed to liberate people. If the guiding understanding isn’t correct, if it doesn’t correspond to the real world and how it can truly be transformed, it would lead the movement to a dead end and never break out of this system.
That’s why it’s so important to base it on science, on an understanding developed from real evidence, not from whims or wishful thinking. And today this science is the revolutionary science founded by Marx and raised to a new level in Bob Avakian’s new communism. By learning, among many other sources, from the great breakthroughs but also the significant mistakes of the early socialist revolutions led by Lenin and Mao, and by analyzing the new features of today’s capitalism-imperialism, Avakian has forged a new leap in revolutionary science, a new framework for the emancipation of humanity—one that’s more scientific, more revolutionary, more liberating, and more in tune with our times.
Faced with the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union in 1956 and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in China in 1976 (although it continues to call itself “communist”), the vast majority of female and male revolutionaries around the world abandoned revolution and communism, while others turned it into an empty phrase. Avakian, on the other hand, has dedicated his life to fighting for the exploited and oppressed and for communist revolution worldwide. Moreover, he has dedicated more than 40 years to analyzing and developing a deeper understanding of why capitalism was restored in these early socialist experiences and how to better fight to prevent such restoration, and advance more and better in a new wave of socialist revolutions around the world. He has developed an inspiring and realistic vision of another possible society, one in which dissent, debate, and critical thinking are not only permitted but encouraged, while people’s struggle to end all forms of exploitation, oppression, social inequality, and discrimination is thoroughly promoted and supported.
In fact, the qualitative leap in the revolutionary science with the new communism is the greatest advantage we now have in the struggle for a very different and much better world. With scientific navigation, a ship can reach its destination and not get lost at sea. With the scientific guide of the new communism, it is possible to chart a correct path toward the emancipation of humanity. Without a scientific guide, the revolutionary struggle would go astray and sink in the murky waters of global capitalism-imperialism.
The Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico (OCR,M) has applied this scientific guide of the new communism to the concrete conditions of Mexico in the world context. It has forged a basic orientation and program for revolution in Mexico, which need to be further developed and deepened. They are embodied in documents such as La revolución liberadora [The Liberating Revolution] and Revolutionary Hope, among others. Many more people need to get into the process of debating and grappling with the new communism, its application to the concrete conditions of Mexico, and the struggle to forge a growing movement for a real revolution in the urgent situation in which we live. If you truly want to fight for deep and real change, you must join the Revolution Movement, critically learn about the new communism and the OCR,M, and participate in fighting the powers that be and transforming the people for revolution. We are very open to debate and criticism, and Bob Avakian himself has been a model of responding to criticism and disagreement with reasoned arguments. He has been the first to criticize and help others learn from the mistakes he himself has made.
Avakian is appreciated and loved by many for the same reason he is hated by others: Because he is the most revolutionary and scientific international leader of our times. This is because of his uncompromising fight for the deepest interests of the people suffering needlessly under this system, his insistence that a revolution is necessary and nothing less, and his groundbreaking contributions to the science of revolution. Faced with this, the petty projects of the haters who seek only to organize a supposedly “revolutionary” movement in the interests of a few, a movement within and without leaving the suffocating confines of the current system, pale in comparison. Recognizing Avakian’s contributions does not represent a “cult,” as the haters claim. It is appreciating and critically learning from his important contributions to science, just as we also appreciate, or should appreciate, the contributions of a Darwin, Einstein, or Marie Curie, a Lenin or Mao.
Criticisms of the content of new communism, supported by reasoned arguments, are most welcome: Debating them contributes to deepening everyone’s understanding and to rectifying errors where they exist. But the phony communists and revolutionaries loyal to the system, the haters who slander and defame the new communism, spewing lies instead of presenting serious arguments, do everything possible to avoid the content of Bob Avakian’s work, like the vampires in fables who avoid the light. They limit themselves to snarky, personal, and lying attacks because they are incapable of refuting the scientific content of new communism.
The struggle against imperialism is a farce and a deception without the struggle against opportunism, said Lenin. And this remains profoundly true today. They will say that we are “isolated.” We are not afraid of being “isolated” from the opportunists. We are not afraid of being “alone” with the honest masses in their millions, while we fight to make clear to honest people the true content of the new communism, against the pernicious deceptions of the opportunists. In this, we are not fighting for the interests of “our group.” We are fighting for debate to take place on the basis of principles and honest criticism of the content of both positions, which is a fundamental and vital process for any truly revolutionary movement.
10. We Are Fighting for a New and True Socialism of Hope, Liberation, and Community, Not the Phony “Socialism” of Maintaining Capitalism with More State Ownership and “Social Programs”
The triumph of the real socialist revolution in Mexico will open up a new dawn, a completely new horizon for the liberation of the people and, ultimately, for the emancipation of all humanity.
We’re not talking about something like the phony “socialism” and real state capitalism of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and present-day China. For phony “socialists” and “communists,” “socialism” simply boils down to a degree of state ownership, some economic planning, and some social programs to somewhat alleviate the misery of the exploited and oppressed. However, if state ownership and planning are led by the capitalist principle of maximizing profits, the result is a capitalist society not unlike those openly claiming to be such. This is the stark reality of present-day China, with its billionaires, its stock market, and its imperialist superpower behavior competing with U.S. imperialism for world domination. Cuba is another example of capitalism under a “socialist” banner. While the criminal blockade imposed by U.S. imperialism must be condemned and opposed, that blockade has been even more effective due to the fact that from the beginning, the Cuban revolution remained within the imperialist capitalist system, dependent at the time on the Soviet Union, which was restoring capitalism (under a “socialist” banner). The island’s focus was on maximum profits, prioritizing sugar cultivation for export, rather than a diversified agriculture to feed the people. Later, the island became increasingly open to foreign imperialist investment and became dependent on “industries” like tourism, accompanied by prostitution, openly justified by Fidel Castro himself when he said, “Cuban women like this,” a repugnant misogynistic self-exposure.
True socialism requires, but is not reduced to, confiscating capitalist property, converting it into the property of all the people, and planning the economy. This requires that the planning is governed not by the capitalist principle of maximizing profits, but by the socialist principles of meeting the needs of the people, continuing to transform the inequalities, oppressive relationships, and ideas inherited from the old society, and contributing to the advancement of the world revolution.
Above all, revolutionary China, but also the Soviet Union, were early experiences of advancing along the path of true socialism, before the restoration of capitalism in both cases. Contrary to bourgeois propaganda, they actually achieved great, inspiring breakthroughs which demonstrate what the exploited and oppressed are capable of when they hold state power. They also suffered from significant errors, which is not surprising given that these were the first and unprecedented experiences of a radically different and better society, under the fire of capitalism-imperialism, which still predominated in the world.
However, we’re not even talking about repeating the best achievements of these truly socialist revolutions, by avoiding past mistakes. We’re talking about a new socialism inspired by the new framework for human emancipation of the new communism developed by Bob Avakian, applied to the specific conditions of Mexico.
With another system, everyone could have what they need to live a full life. No one would have to endure the worries and real anguish of the daily struggle to survive under the current system. The resources and scientific and technological knowledge already exist to provide healthy food, decent housing, and quality medical care for everyone. Although this will be a hard struggle to break the shackles of imperialist domination of the economy and society in Mexico, this will also be possible in Mexico by developing a socialist, independent, and internationalist economy after a real revolution. It is only because of capitalism, which seeks maximum profits for few people, that so many people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, live in the street, and die from lack of medicine, medical care, or from substandard medical care.
The victorious revolution will break the shackles of capitalism and imperialist domination by confiscating the companies and capital of the big national and foreign capitalists, as well as renouncing foreign debt and unequal treaties. This will lay the bases for a new socialist economy guided by the principles of serving the needs of the people, caring for the environment, and promoting a world revolution for the emancipation of all humanity. It will no longer be an economy subordinated to the dictates of imperialism and big capitalists, based on the super-exploitation of cheap labor, the plundering of natural resources, and the devastation of nature.
An urgent transition to clean energy sources will begin, drastically reducing and ultimately eliminating dependence on fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal), which cause global warming and are leading the Earth toward existential disaster for our species and many others. At the same time, the people and scientists of the world will be called upon to join the determined fight against this destruction of our only planet. Mexico has a decisive role to play in this regard, not only because of the example such a transformation will set for the world, but also because of the impact the revolution here will have on the possibilities for a revolution in the United States, the world’s largest source of pollution, if there hasn’t already been a revolution on the other side of the border.
Agriculture, now largely dominated by mega-corporations, often transnationals, which poison the land, water, air, and their very products with pesticides, monocultures, genetically modified crops, and nasty concentrations of pigs and other livestock, largely for export, will be transformed. These big corporations will be confiscated, and peasants and day laborers will be relied on in carrying out a radical land redistribution and the transformation of large agricultural units, respecting the rights of the indigenous peoples. On this basis and based on a process of voluntary collectivization, a new decentralized and diversified agriculture will be created, based on organic and healthy methods to feed the people.
The oppression of the indigenous peoples will be attacked at its roots, who, as part of the backbone of the revolutionary army and the revolutionary vanguard, will not only retake the territories that rightfully belong to them but will also establish regional indigenous autonomy. Instead of the current artificial states that often divide one indigenous nationality among several states in Mexico, autonomous indigenous regions will be established in the areas of concentration, with their own government and economic planning, where all people, both indigenous and non-indigenous, will enjoy equal rights. As part of the national socialist planning of the economy, priority attention will be given to raising the standard of living of the indigenous peoples and the countryside in general. The development of indigenous languages, now suppressed in many ways in fact, will be encouraged, and the new revolutionary state will promote a nationwide struggle against the racism that remains so prevalent in Mexican society.
This new state, radically different and emerging from the conscious revolutionary struggle of millions of people, will mobilize the people themselves in new ways of administering expeditious justice subject to due process and genuine respect for the rights of the accused, to arrest, prosecute, and punish all the femicidal murderers, rapists, and harassers who enjoy almost complete impunity in today’s macho and misogynistic society. The right of women to have or not have children will be finally established, with the right to abortion at any point during pregnancy and the broad and accessible distribution of contraception. Throughout the revolutionary process, the fury of women will have been unleashed as a powerful force for the revolution to transform all of society and, in particular, to overcome all forms of oppression and inequality for women, as well as the macho ideology that justifies those forms. Likewise, equality and respect for LGBTQ people will be thoroughly protected, and backward prejudices in this regard will be fought against throughout society.
With new methods of administering justice, once again expeditious but also subject to due process and genuine respect for the rights of the accused, those responsible for so many state crimes will be prosecuted and punished, from the 1968 massacre, the Dirty War, Acteal, Ayotzinapa, and the massacres of migrants under the current government. Since the new state, born of the conscious revolutionary struggle of the people, will no longer be in collusion with both “legal” and illegal big business, the organized crime cartels will be swiftly and finally dismantled, giving the rank and file of these organizations, often recruited by force, avenues for rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
All of this will be regulated by a new socialist Constitution that, unlike the laws in current Mexican society, will be respected and applied consistently, guaranteeing the rights of the people. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by Bob Avakian, serves as an excellent example of a new vision and conception of a truly liberating socialist society. While this Constitution applies specifically to the territory of what is now the United States (and not to the particularities of Mexican society), it is guided by several universal principles and methods of the new communism for leading the socialist society and pursuing revolution, which need to be applied in all countries. An example of this is the principle of a solid core with a lot of elasticity based on the solid core, which we will explain a little later.
The future Revolutionary Communist Party, Mexico, having led the revolutionary struggle of millions, will provide leadership for the new socialist state within the framework of the principles of the new Constitution. However, unlike even the best socialist experiences from the past, it will not attempt to play this leading role by monopolizing leadership positions in the new political and economic apparatus, but rather by presenting proposals to the new institutions and through its influence and mobilization of the masses to continue transforming society and contributing to the world revolution toward the luminous goal of communism. That goal is a society without classes, exploitation, oppression, or social inequalities, with a fundamental transformation of all the backward ideas that correspond to the relationships in the old capitalist society. This future communist society will be a truly free and diverse community of human beings throughout the planet.
Even with all the big and radical transformations that will be possible with the triumph of the socialist revolution, many relationships and inequalities inherited from the old society will still remain—between women and men, between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, between rural and urban areas, between manual workers and intellectual workers, between those who earn more and those who earn less, among others. And many of the ideas that correspond to and justify these inequalities will also persist. All of this is not only unjust but also constitutes the basis for the possibility of restoring capitalism and the emergence of leaders, even within a part of the revolutionary communist party, who will fight to return to the capitalist road, as occurred in the socialist societies of Russia and China in the last century.
Therefore, it will be essential to continue forging a growing solid core, with the revolutionary communist party as its leading element and also including a growing number of other people in the new society, who will fight to continue the revolution under socialism, step by step restricting all the inequalities and relationships inherited from the old society, as well as digging up the corresponding backward and oppressive ideas.
Interacting, and ultimately, as part of the struggle to continue the revolution under socialism, great freedom will be unleashed among the people, an atmosphere encouraging dissent, criticism, and debate such as the world has never seen before. This process of broad debate, dissent, and criticism in socialist society is essential not only for people to feel free to express themselves and carry on their lives, but also for getting to the truth, identifying errors, and involving an increasing number of formerly exploited and oppressed people in governing the new society and grappling with the great challenges of transforming everything in the interests of the people and ultimately in the interests of all humanity.
While any attempt to restore the old society by means of arms will be suppressed, people will be free even to argue in favor of the old capitalist society. There will be elections, not only for the government but also for the leading committees of all economic, social, educational, cultural, and other institutions in society. That is, this will be radically different from today’s society: Every workplace, for example, will be run by a revolutionary committee elected by the people who work there. And this will be the case in every other institution in society. Candidates from diverse viewpoints will be able to run, although there will be protections to prevent the restoration of capitalism through elections unless the overwhelming majority votes in that sense.
All of this is an application of Bob Avakian’s unheard-of concept of a solid core with a lot of elasticity based on the solid core. Its application in this case is to foster both a growing solid core struggling to continue the revolution under socialism, and a broad atmosphere of debate, dissent, and criticism throughout society. For the revolutionary leadership, it will undoubtedly be very difficult to try to encompass and learn from all of this in a way that contributes to getting to the truth, overcoming problems, and advancing toward a bright communist future. At times, it will require going almost to the brink, as Avakian has said, of being drawn and quartered by the various forces pulling from different sides in society. However, this is an essential process for forging a vibrant new society that is more liberating than ever before, getting to the truth in all its complexity, recognizing and rectifying errors, preventing capitalist restoration, and achieving greater leaps toward the emancipation of all humanity.
From the interrelationship between this growing core struggling to continue the revolution under socialism, and the broad diversity of thinking, dissent, and debate, a diverse and inspiring new culture will emerge, promoting the values of community, mutual respect, and hope for the future that we can barely imagine in the face of the rotten, selfish, misogynistic, and racist culture that predominates today.
11. The Challenge for Everyone, in the Face of a Terrible, Agonizing World, and a New, Shining World Struggling to Be Born
Not only in Mexico but also throughout the world, the old, outdated system of capitalism-imperialism is reaching its limits. Unnecessary suffering increases year after year, the lives of billions are becoming increasingly desperate, and humanity teeters on the brink of existential threats of environmental disaster and nuclear war. The old world is agonizing, but it will not collapse under its own weight. Capitalism must be gotten rid of before does away with us.
The old society is agonizing amid great crises and upheavals. But beneath the gloomy surface, new possibilities are opening up for a real and truly liberating revolution. Transforming these possibilities into the reality of an emancipatory struggle for a real revolution depends on what each of us does. Dare to learn about the new communism. Have the courage, the heart, and the critical mind to take up a commitment to the people who desperately need a revolution and join the battle for the new socialist society of hope, liberation, and community that is struggling to be born.
