Comments on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America from a Supporter

September 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

After my first reading of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal), I decided to read it a second time right away to make sure I understood everything. I spent hours playing with the apportionment figures and thinking about the structure of government bodies to see if they made sense and truly reflected the principles embodied in the Preamble. This document was so different and fresh, I bought extra copies to give to various friends and family.

At that time, discussions I’d had with them about the future of society and the importance of following Bob Avakian’s writings did not seem to be going anywhere. Some of my friends had long histories of political activism. On the one hand we seemed to have general agreement on what we were fighting for (values), but on the other hand they had very challenging questions about the “outcome” of a revolution that needed better answers than I felt capable of giving them. For example, many of the questions that came up had to do with the relation between the revolutionary party and the new government. I felt a new approach was needed to make these questions and concerns “real.”

The Draft Proposal, I thought, would help my friends look at these questions in a new light, and how Avakian’s breakthrough concepts—like the “solid core, with a lot of elasticity”—were providing a more scientific basis now to do this. For myself, reading the document forced me to consider principles not as abstractions, but as values that are reflected in the rules society is governed by. From the perspective of a just, revolutionary society, what values must be written into law? Flowing from that, how should society be governed—government, courts, legislative bodies, elections—and, perhaps most important, what direction society should be moving?

It will be worthwhile for concerned people at all levels of society and from all walks of life to pick up the Draft Proposal. What kind of society would be worth living in and worth fighting to bring into being? How could we manage that society for the benefit of humanity? What role would each citizen (we are talking about you and I here!) be expected to play in such a society? (That’s a question I never thought of until reading the Draft Proposal.) The document is very concrete in its application of revolutionary principle and a challenge to those who want and need a better world.

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