A Letter to the Revolution Clubs from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

August 10, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

Three months ago the clubs took a bold step into the future—digging into and then getting out the Message from our Central Committee, “Time To Get Organized for an Actual Revolution.” This message lets people know very clearly what the revolution aims to do; how to understand the problem and the solution; who is BA, what he has done and why we follow him; what to do now to prepare for that revolution; and what to live and die for.

The Revolution Clubs stepped in a new way with this Message, and people took notice of what they were saying and how they were saying it. The clubs took the Message mostly to the people who catch hell every day, but also to the commemorations of the Orlando massacre, to Pride events, to other events and to people who were agonizing about how things are and what the future holds. The clubs sponsored very successful July 4 “Imagine a World Without America” picnics, where people broke bread together and got into what the revolution is all about.

As the eyes of the world were on the fascist Republican National Convention in July, Revolution Club volunteers from around the country came to Cleveland to project revolution and fight for a completely different future. Photo: Special to revcom.us

Through it all, the clubs much more became places where people went back and forth in deep and scientific ways over the biggest questions of the revolution: could we really win, and why do we need revolution and not reform, what is BA’s scientific approach to communism and how do you learn to apply it, along with how do we carry out the strategy through all kinds of different challenges.

The club was doing that and, on that basis, it was in the streets, joining and mobilizing and leading people to fight the power. When the pigs who murdered Freddie Gray were found not guilty in Baltimore, the Revolution Club was there, raising revolution and fighting back. When masses rose up in Baton Rouge and then Minnesota over the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile—and then rose up in cities all over—the club was there, raising revolution and fighting back. Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, FOR Revolution. When the enemy tried to put people on the defensive over incidents where police were killed, the club was there: showing people how to pull the lens back and scientifically look at the larger reality, doing so as they led people back onto the offensive. When the Republi-fascists nominated Trump and all too many people stayed away from that hate-fest when they needed to be in Cleveland protesting, the Revolution Club was there—and not just there, but going right up in the face of these fascists and burning the American rag. News of this shot around the world—in newspapers, on the Internet and on TV, inspiring and giving heart to people all over the country and all over the world.

More than that—the club was bringing people the solution in the middle of all this, revolution. The club was wearing both the BA image and the BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts, and showing the clips of his talks on the streets. The club was getting into Revolution—Nothing Less! with people who wanted to learn what this was all about... and wrangling over it ourselves. Taking people to revcom.us. Through all this the club brought out more deeply the source of the problems humanity faces in the capitalist-imperialist system... the possibility of solving that problem and getting to a whole new world through an actual revolution... and the leadership, in BA and the Party he leads, that we have to realize that possibility.

Through all this, hundreds of thousands and maybe millions heard about the club for the first time, some people began to check it out, and some people took copies or posters of the “Message” and began to get it out, and others made sure they stayed up on the walls. Through all this, some new people began to join the club, and some people came deeper into it. This matters—a lot.

These are very important first steps. You worked and fought very hard to do this, you changed things, and you need to know that. But there is a world to win, a revolution to urgently prepare for. Things this fall are going to get very intense, with a possibility of things breaking open in ways not seen before. But unless there is revolutionary leadership to wrench opportunity out of madness, that won’t go anywhere good. So what must be done, now, to go forward?

First, the Message—“Time To Get Organized for an Actual Revolution”—has to go out much further, much broader and much deeper. We have to take this out to the high schools and campuses, stirring things up, challenging people, going to events, and really sitting down and going deeply with people. We have to go back into the ’hoods where we’ve been and go to the ones where we haven’t. In all of these places, we have to forge new ways to involve the people themselves in taking up this message and getting it out, bringing home to them that this revolution is of them and for them—to become emancipators not only of themselves but of all humanity—and the more that they become part of this, the more forcefully its message will hit home to people. They have a role in all this. We need to talk in the club about what we’ve learned on how to unleash this role, and what more we could do or try in order to do better.

As we do this, we need to take up the fight to Drop the Charges against Joey Johnson and RNC 16. Burning the American flag was righteous and necessary to counter the Make American Great Again fascist mantra coming from the RNC. The authorities must not be allowed to get away with circumventing, distorting, punishing, and criminalizing this defining act of protest.

The revolution actually advances through battling back against counter-revolutionary attacks like these charges. You take the case and the stakes of it to the people, you draw the lines, and through this people come to support the revolution. This has to happen today, and these kinds of things will be crucial when the all-out struggle for power comes on the agenda. So the call demanding that the charges be dropped needs to go out and be taken up by all kinds of people... money must be raised... and more and more people must be won to close ranks with those comrades facing charges, and to make this whole outrageous attack politically boomerang against the enemy. We need to strategize over how to do this—who to reach, and how to reach them, and how to involve them. Those comrades who caught cases need to be backed up and helped in fighting through in the legal arena itself.

Now is also an important time to really get way deeper into what revolution and communism are all about. There should be time for focused study and discussion of Bob Avakian’s The New Communism, and the Six Resolutions of the Party from January 1 of this year. Revolution Clubs in different cities should strive to find a few days before the fall to really immerse in these works, if possible. We need to be using BAsics among ourselves all the time, and we need to be taking this out to the people we meet, bringing out relevant quotes when we’re talking to them and selling them the book so that they can dig into things in a very “basic” way. And we should be thinking about, and talking about, ways to make The New Communism in particular hit really big when it comes out in the fall.

This will be a time when the clubs will have to be even more at the forefront of the sharp struggles that jump off, or can be jumped off, around the genocidal program of police terror and mass incarceration; against the demonization and repression of immigrants; the oppression and degradation of women; the capitalist plunder of the environment; and the wars of empire that these imperialists are constantly waging, openly and through other forces who do their dirty work. What have we learned in these struggles—about how to wage them? Why should we do this? How do they fit into what is said in BAsics about strategy?

Then there are the elections. We are proposing to the clubs that there be a tour in late September and early October that goes right up against this deadly trap with the slogan “We Need to Overthrow, Not Vote For, This System.” There are millions of people being drawn into political life by these elections, but on all the wrong terms. It is up to us to change all that, and we can—and this can be, and must be, part of preparing for an actual revolution. We’ll be coming out with a more worked-out proposal soon. But even still—there is plenty right now to sum up about what was learned through the conventions, what are people saying all around us, how do we help people see through this? How do we make these tours a real deal, especially in the communities and the campuses?

And, no doubt, there’ll be more! Which is just how we need it, and how we want it... to really go for revolution, and nothing less.

Through all this, we’re going to need to create a culture where people are living in the way that is put forward in our “Points of Attention.” We need to create a welcoming place where people can get deeper into what the revolution and communism are all about and work through their questions. And all the time, among ourselves, we need to create a culture where we’re asking: how is this getting us closer to revolution? What more do we need to understand, and to do, to push things further? How do we hasten the development of things so that, at the earliest possible time, millions can be led to go all-out for revolution, with a real chance at winning?

We’d like you to talk about this, and wrangle with it, and let us know what you think. Let’s get a process going now where we analyze what we’re up against, make big plans to transform all that, and organize people around all that!

 

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