Forging a New Programme

A Revolutionary Approach to Class Analysis

Revolutionary Worker #1055, May 21, 2000

As we entered the year 2000, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA announced its plan for forging a new Progamme--a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Programme--for making and winning revolution in the United States.

The RCP is calling on people to help produce this new Programme. The Party wants to work with people to do research and investigation into the class structure and social fabric of the U.S. It wants to engage people in discussion, wrangling, and debate: about issues of analysis, about its vision of a new society and about its strategy for creating such a new society. The Party wants to hear people's opinions and observations about the current Programme, and their suggestions for the new one.

To assist people in taking part in this project, the Revolutionary Worker is publishing reprints and materials to provide a background and grounding in certain MLM principles, and in the Party's developing analysis of society and the revolutionary process.

Following are excerpts from a kit that was developed for the revolutionary youth as part of the Programme process.

INTRODUCTION

"Right now, our Party is carrying out a process of sharpening our plan for developing the revolutionary movement under today's conditions and preparing for the showdown with the rulers of this system and their forces of oppression and destruction. We are building on our work and the struggle of the people so far to bring forth a new revolutionary Programme of the RCP,USA. This new Programme will strengthen our ability to rally the people to the revolutionary cause as part of the worldwide proletarian revolution."

From Statement by Bob Avakian, Chairman of RCP January 1, 2000

Today a new generation is on the scene fighting the power. It's a generation that has questions about the future...that has dreams about the future. To forge our new Programme, the RCP needs to draw on the experiences, insights, and creativity of the youth who refuse to see this system as the best of all possible worlds. Lots of youth can contribute to the process, even those who aren't yet totally convinced that proletarian revolution is the solution.

We are inviting youth to join us in study and investigation to deepen our analysis that REVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE in the belly of the beast, and that THERE IS A CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO CAN LEAD IT, a class of proletarians who "have nothing to lose but their chains." To develop this new Programme, we have to use our powerful and scientific Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) method. This involves going to the masses and learning from them.

THE ROLE OF A PARTY PROGRAMME

The Party's Programme is a battle plan, a kind of road map for making revolution in the U.S. as part of the world revolution. It also provides a vision and beginning steps of how to build a communist world once state power is in the hands of the people. To develop the RCP's new Programme, we are standing on the correct understanding that this system cannot be reformed, and that revolution in the U.S. will mean revolutionary war.

A crucial part of the Party's Programme is its analysis of U.S. society and the forces for revolution. The Programme has to answer the question that Mao Tsetung said was of life and death importance for the revolution: "Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?"

How do you tell real friends apart from real enemies? You need to understand the position of various classes in society and their specific attitudes towards change and revolution. This is what Maoists call "making a class analysis."

WHAT ARE CLASSES AND WHAT IS CLASS ANALYSIS?

We are taught in this society to see the world as just a collection of self-determined individuals. Some people see large groups of people but define this in terms of "the rich, the middle class, and the poor"--based simply on how much money somebody has. While these categories are of some use, they are not a guide to understanding the real structure of society.

Some people see the world as being mainly divided along racial or national lines, while others understand the world as being divided mainly along gender lines. These are in fact very real and deep divisions. But there is a more fundamental division that shapes and influences these other oppressions...and that is the division of society into exploiter and exploited classes.

To make revolution, you need a deep and scientific look at all groupings of people in society and what role they play in the economics and politics of that society. So how do we understand classes?

Lenin gave us a good three-part definition of classes when he outlined the following points.

Classes are large groups of people that differ from each other by the place they occupy in a historically definite system of social production: 1) by their relationship to the means of production--whether they own and control the means to producing the necessities of life and wealth of society, such as the tools and instruments, including land and raw materials; 2) by their role in the social organization of labor and production--for example, some people do manual work, others do technical work, others do the work of administration and supervision; and 3) by the resulting share of social income and wealth that these groups obtain and by the ways that they obtain it.

Using the science of MLM, we can understand the various factors that make up classes down through history. When we make class analysis, we examine the main features of different classes:

  • We look at their place in a specific society in history, such as slave, feudal, or capitalist society--and first and foremost by their relationship to the means of production.
  • We look at the relations between different classes.
  • We look at the way of life and social experience of various classes, the different concerns and goals of classes, their attitudes and felt needs, the way they fight back and their capability for collective (vs. individual) action.
    •

    How did human civilization split into classes? In order for human beings to survive and continue in existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life such as clothing, shelter, food, medicine, etc. As soon as it was no longer necessary for everybody to work in order to sustain society--when it became possible for some people to live off the labor of others--classes arose. Classes emerged in human society when the social division of labor (people carrying out different productive tasks to keep society going) was changed into a relation of oppression and exploitation.

    What is a ruling class? The class that owns and controls the means of production is the class that rules society. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie owns and controls the huge and highly developed, technologically advanced, means of production (factories, machinery, transportation and communications systems, banks and financial institutions, etc.). Capitalism grew into imperialism at the start of the 20th century--a ruthless system of global exploitation and domination. The capitalist-imperialists control the state as the means to maintain their rule.

    The ruling ideas in society, such as "look out for number 1," are those of the ruling class. It not only controls the economy and political institutions of society but also dominates intellectual and cultural life. The ruling class promotes ideas and theories that serve its class interests, restricts the masses' access to ideas and theories that challenge the ruling system, and works to distort such ideas and theories.

    Class analysis also examines "class-consciousness"--people's understanding of their objective class interests and how to pursue them. But class consciousness doesn't come automatically to the proletariat.

    The U.S. ruling class lies constantly that there is no class system in America. They work overtime to make the real lives, conditions and feelings of the proletariat and oppressed invisible. The intense struggle for daily survival makes it hard for the proletariat to lift our heads and see the bigger picture, about our class internationally, our relationship to other classes, and what we can do to overthrow capitalism. We need a communist vanguard Party and a Party Programme to help our class become class conscious and to guide us in achieving our historic mission.

    Marx and Engels taught us to understand how and why society changes. They said that human history is also a history of CLASS STRUGGLE--the social practice of different classes in pursuit of their class interests. If we want to understand why society changes, we need to understand class struggle.

    MORE ABOUT MAKING CLASS ANALYSIS

    The key factor in making class analysis is understanding, as Lenin said, the "different places occupied" by people "in a definite system of social economy." But class analysis is more than just economics in the most narrow sense. Class analysis looks at the political and social place people occupy in society. For instance, cops are not members of the working class. They are part of the ruling class machinery of repression and oppression.

    Individual income isn't the starting point of class analysis, although it's one important indicator (somebody's class position leads to a typical or likely share of income). Again, we have to look at people's relationship to the means of production and where and how they fit into the whole class set-up of society. For example, a teacher might earn the same income as a factory worker. But the skills, education, and credentials of teachers give them some position and status in society. Teachers are also expected to play a certain role in society, transmitting the ideology and values of the system. For these kinds of reasons, teachers are part of the middle class.

    A correct class analysis is the foundation for being able to apply the RCP's strategy for revolution and building socialism--the United Front under the Leadership of the Proletariat--to unite all who can be united against the common enemy. This united front strategy is the means by which diverse forces and sections of society, including large sections of the middle classes, can be brought together in struggle against the system and be won to see their common interests with a revolution led by the proletariat....

    An important task in developing our new programme is to update our class analysis.

    WHY THE PROLETARIAT IS THE REVOLUTIONARY CLASS
    IN SOCIETY

    Our Chairman Bob Avakian ran this down powerfully in the "New Millennium" statement:

    "As a result of thousands of years of historical development and creative activity and struggle by human beings in all parts of the world, a fantastic amount of technology and knowledge has been brought forth.... AND THE PROBLEM TODAY IS THAT, IN THE HANDS OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS THAT RULES OVER US AND STILL CONTROLS HUMANITY'S FATE, THE TREMENDOUS TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE THAT IS CREATED CANNOT BE USED FOR THE BENEFIT OF HUMANITY AS A WHOLE AND INSTEAD CAN ONLY SUBJECT THE GREAT MAJORITY OF US TO AGONY AND OPPRESSION... THIS CLASS OF CAPITALIST EXPLOITERS CANNOT RUN SOCIETY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PEOPLE.

    "BUT THERE IS A CLASS THAT CAN DO THIS. This class is the proletariat. The proletariat is all of us--of all races and nationalities, in the U.S. and throughout the world--who, under this system, can live only so long as we work, and can work only so long as our work enriches someone else--the capitalist class...."

    We are the modern-day wage slaves who work on the modern-day plantations and factories of the capitalists. Whether we are sewing clothes in the garment factories of L.A., making shoes in China, driving a cab in Paris, down and out and looking for work in Soweto or the South Bronx, or forced to move from one country to another just to find work--our labor, collectively, is the foundation of society and produces tremendous wealth. But this wealth is stolen by a small number of capitalists who turn it into their "private property," into means of further exploiting us.

    Our Chairman goes on to say:

    "Once we have risen up together and thrown off the rule of capital, we can not only free ourselves, we can revolutionize all of society and the world....We can take hold of the means to produce and acquire wealth and knowledge, make them the common property of the people and use them to benefit the people and society as a whole. We can transform all of the institutions and relations in society and the culture and ideas so that the common good is promoted and served. This is our world-historic mission. In this, we represent the great majority of people, and we can lead them to change the world."

    The proletariat is the revolutionary class because of its strategic position in society AND because it has the historic interest in leading the struggle to destroy the old order of exploitation and oppression and to construct a new classless, communist world. The proletariat is an international class.

    There are in fact millions of proletarians in the U.S., of many different nationalities, who live only so long as they work, and work only so long as our labor can enrich some capitalist.

    But since our last programme was written, there have been big changes in the make-up of the proletariat and in its working and living conditions. We are deepening our analysis of these changes and how they affect the revolutionary process. We are calling on the youth to assist us in investigation.

    This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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