Now is a Great Time to be a Communist
101 years ago today amidst the bloodshed of the First World War and as most of the world was chocked in the chains of colonialism, Lenin’s Bolsheviks lead the October Revolution establishing for the first time the dictatorship of the proletariat, thereby launching a revolutionary wave that would define the 20th century. However, in the years leading up to this revolution, it seemed as if everything was going wrong for the working class. The Second International at the head of the worker’s movement had taken the path of opportunism and ultimately pro-war chauvinism. Those who stayed true to Marxism and internationalism were ridiculed and said to be insignificant. However, it was exactly these conditions that made evident the collapse of the Second International and the utter bankruptcy of social democracy. This combined with the effort to redivide the world between imperialist powers in the World War set the conditions for the victory of the proletariat in Russia.
Similarly brutal conditions set the stage for the next world-historic revolution: the Chinese Revolution. After having their base areas decimated and facing seemingly inevitable defeat, the People’s Liberation Army under the leadership of Mao Zedong undertook the Long March to evade the Kuomintang and establish a new base area in a distant corner of the country. From there they carried through the protracted people’s war with a comparatively small force, building it up until they defeated not only the Kuomintang and their imperialist backers, but also the Japanese fascist invaders. After the victory of the PLA and establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the red flag flew over an additional 600 million people and the proletariat ruled one third of the globe.
Not only do these world-historic revolutions prove that any protracted struggle by the revolutionary armed masses cannot lose, but also that they thrive in the most difficult and violent conditions. Imperialism today is quickly rebuilding these conditions for its own demise. What is required is that we act correctly upon these conditions to make them revolutionary, which means organising and acting as communists. Many well-intended leftists seem to have a backwards understanding of this and see the imperialist mobilisation for World War, the fascisation of the state, the generalisation of surveillance, and the developing global ecological catastrophe as reasons to regress to the right and stay within the comfortable bounds of movementism, legalism and opportunism. They do not realise that their incorrect ideas are transferring the right-wing upsurge into the Left and leading the working class and all of humanity to catastrophe.
In today’s early stages of renewed inter-imperialist conflict, the imperialists seem unbeatable, but they are tiny and weak compared to the masses. Even the mighty US military has a laughable record of failure in most of its imperialist interventions since the Korean War. This combined with today’s unprecedented concentration of wealth, ecological catastrophe, anti-war sentiment, mass migration, modern communication and accumulated lessons of the proletarian struggle produce prime conditions for communist work. Now is not the time to retreat, but to attack. Dare to struggle, dare to win!
Bourgeois “democracy” today offers the masses two choices: neoliberalism or fascism. For decades, conservatives, liberals and social democrats alike have supported neoliberalism and the wretched world they helped create is used to funnel people into the fascist camp. Neoliberalism and fascism are the two hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie used to exploit and manipulate the people. It is time to break both of these hands and cut off the head. But how?
The principal task of communists in the FRG today is to show the masses that there is another way and to lead them along it. This way is the rise to power of the proletariat and it can only be developed and carried through with the leadership of a genuinely revolutionary communist party. Our first priority is the construction of this party in collaboration with all revolutionary forces in this country. We will not waste our time with anti-communist “leftists”, stubborn old revisionists, dishonest “comrades”, poser crews preoccupied with looking as radical as possible, and other lost opportunists. We are also finished with the same old movementist losing strategy of just organising demonstrations to “raise awareness”, maybe doing some social work, sponsoring whatever union struggles spontaneously emerge, voting for “the lesser evil” every few years, and then repeating this same cycle hoping each time that the result will be anything else than more gains for the fascists. Our goal is to develop new communist mass work that integrates the masses into combative proletarian organisations to serve the revolution, a revolution that will be the violent overthrow of one class by another and will mark the end of the FRG. Principal in this development is the question of political line. Only by combining honest internal debate and struggle on the lessons of the communist movement with parallel mass work informing us on the correct theory and practice for today can we begin to develop a a correct line for the communist party that will bury German imperialism for good. Political line is no abstract topic, but rather the fundamental principles that guide our short-term and long-term plans. We do not expect to settle all political questions from the beginning, but a certain level of ideological clarity and agreement must be achieved to not fall apart and avoid the pitfalls of opportunism and revisionism that ultimately uphold capitalism and imperialism.
We, the Proletarian Left, have recognised the necessity of communism and call on all genuine communists in this country to join with us in the effort to develop the communist movement in the FRG and particularly in the South-West. Although we are mostly Maoists, we see it as absolutely necessary to work with all genuine communists and revolutionaries. We trust that as long we develop together through rigorous internal struggle and anchor ourselves in the masses, we cannot go astray and the red line will advance.
Now is a great time to be a communist!
Build the Communist Party!
All power to the proletariat!
The Proletarian Left
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