May 2, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
These statements should give further impetus to every revolutionary communist in every part of the globe to take up this new synthesis of communism, and to be part of what is called for in BA’s seminal new work The Science, The Strategy, The Leadership for An Actual Revolution, And A Radically New Society on the Road to Real Emancipation:
There is an urgent need for this new synthesis to be taken up, broadly, in this society and in the world as a whole: everywhere people are questioning why things are the way they are, and whether a different world is possible; everywhere people are talking about “revolution” but have no real understanding of what revolution means, no scientific approach to analyzing and dealing with what they are up against and what needs to be done; everywhere people are rising up in rebellion but are hemmed in, let down and left to the mercy of murderous oppressors, or misled onto paths which only reinforce, often with barbaric brutality, the enslaving chains of tradition; everywhere people need a way out of their desperate conditions, but do not see the source of their suffering and the path forward out of the darkness.
Declaration of Grupo Comunista Revolucionario de Colombia, May 1, 2016:
Urgently needed: Take up the new synthesis of communism of Bob Avakian, the new framework required for a new stage of revolution!
May 2, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The translation from Spanish to English of this statement is the responsibility of revcom.us/Revolution.
It is a world in which the capacity to feed all human beings coexists disgracefully with more than a billion people who “live” with chronic malnutrition, and literally every five seconds a person dies of hunger!...
It is a world in which they justify wars of aggression in country after country, torture and massacres, with a morality that values the lives of people in Western countries (and of white people, men, the rich) over the lives of everyone else...
It is a world in which millions of people are forced to risk their lives, driven from their homes by reactionary wars and plunder and other problems caused by the system that rules over them...
It is a world in which the oppressed are rounded up wherever they go, running the risk of an early death, a life foreclosed and ruined, insulted at every turn and even murdered, simply due to who they are...
It is a world where everything (including people, especially women and children) becomes an object to be bought and sold...
It is a world where women face a daily onslaught of harassment, discrimination, oppression and hidden or open and even physical and lethal brutal aggression...
It is a world of outrageous political and legal attacks and vicious intimidation against LGBT people...
It is a world in which, due to the environmental emergency, the future of life on this planet is uncertain...
It is a world ruled by a system that snuffs out spirits, and degrades the people stripping them of their status of full human beings...
And although material resources, knowledge and people exist that could make another way of life possible for all of humanity, they are fettered and then used to suck people into more ignorance, superstition and misery.
Yes, it is true that exploitation and oppression breed resistance. Around the world again and again signs of discontent and outbreaks of fury burst forth. It is commonplace that a deep sentiment arises that there should be a better way to organize human society, that another, different world must be and is possible. But without a scientific approach, method and leadership, in general that sentiment is channeled into dead ends, and the masses continue to be subjected to endless horrors.
Today’s world is a horror, not because of human nature but the functioning of the system. There is no permanent necessity for the state of affairs that exists. The world does not have to be this way. There is a way out, communist revolution.
Those who want to create this completely different world immediately confront two things. On the one hand, the repressive forces of the power structure that are used against any challenge to its authority and, on the other hand, there is also contestation in the realm of ideas.
Let us do both: fight the power structure; and debate and wrangle with the most advanced, radical and revolutionary ideas of these times. All in the midst of developing a new revolutionary movement and upsurge, that go further than even the best of the past.
There is debate in society over whether another world is really possible or not, and over what kind of world we want: Is there a way to actually change how people have to live? Instead of changing the various ways in which people suffer oppression, what would it take to eliminate oppression concretely and completely?
In general, there are struggles in the realms of morality, science, religion and worldview; over the question of compromise or resistance; on how to understand and evaluate the first stage of communist revolutions and on many other fronts.
But the most important struggle in the realm of ideas today focuses on the kind of change we need, the theory that can guide this change and the leadership to bring about this radical transformation. There is no other way around it: a revolution, a communist revolution, is still needed.
A real revolution is the only way to end the source of the problem, end the capitalist-imperialist system that dominates the world. The imperialist powers like the United States, the European powers, Russia and China are at the top of this system and dominate countries like Colombia. Of course the capitalist-imperialist system is not all-powerful. There are crises and cracks in the walls of this system. And therein lies the material basis for possibilities of making revolution.
The world capitalist system is no mystery, it can be known and understood. Karl Marx, 150 years ago, laid the foundations for a new science and revealed the secrets of the system’s functioning and how to overthrow it through a new kind of revolution, the communist revolution. Since then, the communists along with millions of proletarians and other oppressed masses throughout the world have tried to continue on this revolutionary path and have changed the history of humanity forever, although they suffered bitter defeats.
The Paris Commune was a first attempt, drowned in blood by the repressive forces of the system after two months. Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, synthesized this short but valuable experience and conceived the kind of state needed for the communist revolution: the dictatorship of the proletariat.
On the basis of Marx’s theory and approach, revolutionary efforts to transform the world began. In the twentieth century there were two great socialist revolutions with great achievements and experiences for humanity, first in the Russian Revolution of 1917 under the leadership of Lenin and later the Chinese Revolution in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Tsetung.
With their theoretical developments and advances in the science of Marxism, Lenin and Mao were able to lead the class struggle, amid tremendous difficulties, to victory in order to immediately take to new heights the difficult process of uprooting the old and building a new economic base and political and cultural superstructure for the new society. They undertook what Marx called the great ruptures with traditional property relations and with the traditional ideas produced and conditioned by them.
However, the Soviet Revolution in Russia was defeated in the mid-1950s and the Chinese Revolution was defeated in late 1976. In both cases a new bourgeoisie that emerged within the party and the socialist state seized power and undertook the restoration of capitalism, although they continued to use the label “socialist.”
In grappling with how to understand the reasons for and preventing the restoration of capitalism, Mao developed the science of Marxism, and to that end he proposed and led a “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” The Cultural Revolution was not able to prevent restoration, and after a coup d’état, the “capitalist roaders” seized power and helped imperialism turn China into the “sweatshop” of the world. This brought to an end the first stage of communist revolutions in the history of humanity.
A wave of counterrevolution broke out. And among the oppressed masses, reactionary political movements took hold in many places. But important revolutionary wars led by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties also made significant advances that inspired revolutionaries and masses of people worldwide. However, those heroic struggles came up against the reality of the great changes in the world and the limitations and distortions of the theory. And the science of communism demanded a new leap even more. A new framework was needed to lay the basis for a truly new stage of communist revolution.
The communist movement faced a real crossroads. With the false verdicts of the reactionaries and the reformists, the liberating history and experience of communism were being discarded in the revolutionary movement, among the bulk of the previously-progressive intelligentsia and among the masses in general, taking up the tattered flags of bourgeois democracy instead. On the other hand a smaller section clung dogmatically and religiously to the revolutionary experience and theory of the first stage of the revolution, including its errors and limitations.
It should be said that many of the prevailing errors in the international communist movement do not come from Marx, Lenin and Mao, who struggled against many of them. However, elements of these incorrect tendencies existed in their own thinking that were then taken up by one or another section of the communist movement and developed into fully developed lines.
But besides the dead ends of the dogmatic trend and the bourgeois-democratic trend (both increasingly becoming residues of the past), there were those who fought to stay on course and clear the revolutionary way forward. The theoretical and practical developments of the communist movement have been rescued and enriched in vision and clarity by another leap in the science of communism. A new leap whereby it is possible to understand much better than before the functioning of the current system and how to free ourselves from it.
This great breakthrough has not been easy. It has taken decades of painstaking scientific work of analysis of the many aspects of the experience of the first stage of revolution, synthesizing its lessons. It has made it possible to recognize and criticize many errors (although the accomplishments were principal) of this first stage of revolution. Ruptures have been recognized and made with various misconceptions in the body of the science of communism developed by Marx, Lenin and Mao, and all the correct parts in this body (which are principal) have been synthesized and reconfigured at new heights.
This new leap in the science of communism has been the product of the theoretical work and the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and the greatest revolutionary of our time. Avakian has not just stayed the course but has produced a whole body of work with a new synthesis of communism: a new level of freedom with which we can interact with the necessity that we now face and transform it in a revolutionary way. Facing up to the necessity—that is, reality and what we are up against—is the basis for achieving freedom—that is, the capacity to transform that reality (based on understanding it).
Facing reality, as it really is, sounds easy but it is not. It is neither automatic nor “natural,” and therefore requires scientific approach and method. The scientific approach and method of communism has been rescued, given a new foundation and enriched by Bob Avakian, who has identified and engaged the thorniest problems facing revolutionaries. In this process, he has revolutionized communism even more, not only by identifying and breaking with aspects of it that were not scientific but by putting all of communism on a more scientific basis.
Therefore, the essence of the new synthesis is the further development and synthesis of communism as scientific method and approach, and the more systematic application of this scientific method and approach to reality in general and in particular to the revolutionary struggle to overthrow and uproot all systems and relations of exploitation and oppression and advance to a communist world.
As with all advances in all science, these do not easily break new ground. Within the Grupo Comunista Revolucionario itself, a serious struggle has been necessary to understand it, take it up and get bearings with it in order to advance the revolution in Colombia as part of the world revolution, which requires above all building the party required to lead it.
And a central focus of today’s genuine communist revolutionaries, in the midst of the actual process of building the genuine communist party, is working to root the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian in the revolutionary movement, and among the masses of people as part of building a movement for revolution under the leadership of such a party. All those who really are concerned about the situation in the world and yearn for real change must engage and fight for this new synthesis.
Humanity needs revolution and the new synthesis of communism of Bob Avakian!
Revolution, nothing less!
Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)—May Day 2016:
This Is an Emergency May Day Call! No Time to Waste!
A Radically Different World Is Possible! Only If We Take Up the New Synthesis of Communism!
May 2, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
We produce more food than the earth’s seven billion people need. But millions are dying of hunger and malnutrition. We have produced science that enables us to go back in time more than one billion years to understand our cosmos but children in Africa, Asia and Latin America are dying of preventable diseases and the propaganda and educational machine of the capitalists injects ignorance of all types into the minds of people in every corner of the world. Racists, bigots and religious obscurantists present themselves as poor peoples’ “leaders”! In how many ways can they commit horrors against humanity? There is no question that this world HAS TO CHANGE. But how? This is the most important question facing humanity.
The source of the problem is the imperialist capitalist system which dominates the world and leads and deploys all sorts of reactionary state powers—including those such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc. The great imperialist powers such as the US, European states, China and Russia are sitting at the top of this dung heap. This system must be taken down and a fundamentally different world must replace it. But how and in what way?
The world capitalist system is not all-powerful, it is not a sealed secret never to be known or understood. More than 150 years ago, Karl Marx revealed the secrets of its workings and the way to undo it through a new kind of revolution which is called a COMMUNIST REVOLUTION. Since Marx’s time we, the revolutionary communists along with millions of proletarians and oppressed masses of the world, have tried to go forward on this path and have changed the history of human society forever, but we have also been bitterly defeated.
The Paris Commune of 1871 was the very first attempt to do this. But it did not last long enough and it was drowned in blood by the bourgeois state and its military. Marx, and his lifelong comrade Engels, summed up this short but very important experience and drew an overall picture of the kind of state which would be needed to carry through the communist revolution: the dictatorship of the proletariat. Based on Marx’s revolutionary and scientific theory and approach, a revolutionary effort for changing the world began. The twentieth century witnessed two great socialist revolutions with tremendous achievements and experiences for humanity on its march to bury capitalism. It happened first in Russia with the October revolution in 1917 under Lenin’s leadership and then in China with another October revolution in 1949 under Mao’s leadership. Lenin and Mao, with their theoretical breakthroughs and advances of the science of Marxism, were able to navigate class struggle through tremendous odds and uncharted waters to victory and began the tortuous process of uprooting the old and building the new economic base and political and cultural superstructure of the new society. This was the beginning of what Marx called rupturing from the traditional relations of ownership and traditional ideas which are produced and conditioned by them.
The revolutions in Russia and China lasted longer than the Paris Commune but not long enough. The revolution in the Soviet Union was defeated in the mid-1950s, capitalism was restored and a new bourgeoisie that had grown within the socialist state and the Communist Party came to power. The socialist revolution in China continued until 1976. Mao developed the science of Marxism through solving the riddle of why under socialism a capitalist restoration occurs, and how it should be prevented. A second revolution was carried out in Socialist China in order to prevent restoration: the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” But this too failed to prevent capitalist restoration. Following the death of Mao in 1976, capitalist-roaders carried out a coup and seized power. With the assistance of the imperialists they turned China into the biggest and most miserable capitalist sweatshop of the world. In this way the first wave of communist revolution in human history came to an end.
An era of counter-revolution ensued throughout the world.
Instead of revolutionary communist and emancipatory movements, reactionary political movements became popular among desperate and deprived masses. For example, the Iranian revolution of 1979 turned into a counter-revolution when the Islamic fundamentalists seized power.
Not long after this, Soviet Social imperialism, which in contention with the US-led Western imperialist bloc had taken the world to the brink of a nuclear war, faced internal crisis and collapsed. This was used by the international bourgeoisie to claim the so-called “death of communism.” But the USSR was merely another capitalist imperialist state which for historical reasons had kept a socialist mask even after capitalism had been restored in the mid-1950s in the previously Soviet socialist country. After the collapse of the USSR, an era of capitalist “globalisation” gave new life to capitalist greed, wars of aggression, racism, rape of women, infanticide and genocide. Today we can clearly see that if a second wave of communist revolution does not begin, this nightmare of capitalism will continue its destructive existence. But what do we need to initiate this new wave and from where?
There is resistance and struggle throughout the world against all kinds of oppression that the capitalist system doles out to people. Yes, people fight back, but they fight back while having the same illusions the system has produced and trained them with. Many people fight back while holding the religious illusion of taming the wild forces of capitalism by going backwards. Many fight back while maintaining illusions about the possibility of reforming capitalism. We can see it in the Syriza and Podemos movements in Europe. Sadly the only emancipatory vision, programme and movement which is revolutionary communism is absent from the scene and this is the most tragic aspect of the present situation. The emancipatory history and experience of communism are buried. And when you do not know your liberatory history and the tools it has honed, it is like you have been born yesterday. A mere baby facing a vicious and experienced enemy!
But this history and its achievements have been saved for us and rendered much richer in vision and clarity, through another exhilarating leap in the science of communism. With this leap in the science of communism we can understand the workings of capitalism and how this system can be undone through revolution, much better than before. This new leap in our science of revolution has not come easily. In a four decade-long period, very hard scientific work went into dissecting every layer of the experience of the first wave of communist revolution and synthesizing its lessons in order to start the second stage or wave. Many errors of the first stage were identified and criticized. Many wrong understandings in the body of communist science as developed by Marx, Lenin and Mao were dug out, and its mainly correct body was synthesized to a higher level, making it a very sharp and more correct explanation of the complicated world that we have to change. It has also produced a very clear and correct understanding of the tortuous path that we have to open up in order to change the world.
This new leap in the science of communism is called the New Synthesis of Communism and this hard work has been carried out by the greatest revolutionary of our time: Bob Avakian. This is the most important and the most urgent message that we want to bring to you on this May Day: to be sure, this exhilarating scientific production stands in the same rank as Marx’s work. It gives humanity a framework to begin the second stage of communist revolution and rise to the challenge of the most urgent need of all humanity: getting rid of capitalism in every corner of the world.
Relying only on our hatred of the suffering of billions of people and all kinds of ugly things that capitalism produces we cannot overthrow it and change the world. We have to get hold of comrade Avakian’s works, just as all revolutionaries back in the 1960s did with the works of Marx, Lenin and Mao. That old stage of science of communism has now divided into two, and a more correct and thus a more revolutionary understanding has come out of its womb.
It is not possible to summarize a whole science and the road map for communist revolution in a May Day message. But through this message, we urgently call upon all those who yearn and need to make a real revolution and radically change the world for the better, to immediately plunge into this scientific work and road map of the new wave of communist revolution. This is the microscope and telescope of a real (and not phony) revolution. To fully abolish capitalism and class-divided society throughout the world is a difficult task to fulfill, and without applying the New Synthesis of Communism we will not be able to take even one step in the right direction and all of our tremendous struggles and sacrifices all over the world will be derailed and exhausted by powerful forces of the system. We have no time to waste! This is our message for a Red May Day!
Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
—May Day 2016
Contact : cpimlm@gmail.com
Website: www.cpimlm.com—May Day 2016
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen