Revolution #190, January 31, 2010
EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A TALK BY BOB AVAKIAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY, USA, FALL 2009
UNRESOLVED CONTRADICTIONS, DRIVING FORCES FOR REVOLUTION
[Editors' note: The following is the seventh in a series of excerpts from the text of a talk by Bob Avakian in Fall 2009, which is being serialized in Revolution. The first six excerpts appeared in Revolution #184, #185, #186, #187, #188, and #189. The entire talk can be found online at revcom.us/avakian/driving.]
It Is What It Is—And It Can Be Transformed
The last point I want to speak to, in this first part of this talk—under the general heading "Once More on the Coming Civil War... and Repolarization for Revolution"—is the importance of what's captured in the metaphor of the multi-layered, multi-colored map. This metaphor is speaking to the fact that the development of a revolutionary movement is not a simple and linear process. It is not one which is going to be built in an essentially economist way by going to oppressed and exploited people and appealing to them on the narrowest of bases, and in fact deluding them, or reinforcing illusions along the lines of thinking, that it's possible to redress and address their conditions, their oppression and their fundamental needs and interests, under the present system. But a revolutionary movement also isn't going to be built by just going to the lower and deeper sections of the proletariat with the notion—or really the illusion—that they are going to come forward in a straight line and basically in a self-contained way to take up the position of revolution and communism, and then that in turn will by itself, or in a linear sequence of events, lead to winning over many of the middle strata. Building a movement for revolution is a much more complex process in which there has to be a correct synergy between what we've called the "two maximizings": maximizing the development of a political movement and a revolutionary current, with communism at its core, among the basic masses, including what's embodied in "Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution," while also doing essentially the same thing among the middle strata and developing the correct synergy—or the dialectical interplay back and forth—between these two elements, maximizing each of these aspects and the development of the revolutionary movement overall.
As we have very correctly and importantly emphasized, only in doing this will it be possible to bring forward a revolutionary force among any section of the people; this cannot be done in boxed off and self-contained ways. Society doesn't exist and reality generally doesn't exist in that way, with self-contained compartments—and therefore neither can the building of a revolutionary movement proceed in that way.
At the same time, what is being gotten at with this metaphor of a multi-layered, multi-colored map is that there are contradictory trends and tendencies—or, if you will, strengths and weaknesses—among different sections of the people. This is not to deny the basic and bedrock role of the most exploited and oppressed sections of society as the backbone of the revolutionary movement. But it is to emphasize once again that all this will not be a straight line and simple process.
For example, if we look at the "social and political configuration" today, one of the reasons why it's unfavorable is that you have a certain strain of enlightenment among the democratic intellectuals, in opposition to religious obscurantism and other kinds of reactionary, even lunatic, political trends and expressions; but there is at the same time a great deal of paralysis among these democratic intellectuals, and similar "progressive middle strata," including for the reason that these people don't want to get "outside of their comfort zone" and, to a significant degree for that reason, they resist pursuing to their logical conclusion many of their own positive inclinations. They are not going to be the first and most decisive force to move to take on everything that has to be taken on, even as we have to continually—and, in a certain sense, unrelentingly—work among them, and struggle in a good way with them, to win them to do that.
On the other hand, among Black people and Latinos and other basic masses, there is very deep hatred for oppression, a certain recognition of the ways in which they are oppressed in this society and of the fact that the dominant forces in this society regard them as having no value, other than to exploit them when that is profitable or to utilize them in wars; that these ruling forces would just as soon kill off many of them as do anything else with them—or even better, from the standpoint of the ruling class, get them to kill each other. But, at the same time, there is among these basic masses a great deal of confusion and even some wrong inclinations or tendencies around a number of decisive questions, including questions of "enlightenment"—in other words, tendencies to be deep into religion and even religious fundamentalism, which has a very strong pull, particularly in today's circumstances, among the basic masses—Black masses, Latinos and others.
If you look at this just in terms of what is apparent on the surface, it can definitely seem like the worst of all worlds. But if you grasp the multi-layered, multi-colored map metaphor and what it is speaking to, you can understand the ways in which precisely—and, in fact, only—on the basis of a revolutionary communist line and the work of forces dedicated to the revolutionary cause on the basis of that line, there is the potential for repolarization, for the moving of the plates (to use a geological metaphor) and a realignment in line with the fundamental interests of the exploited and oppressed masses; and there is a basis to win over broad sections of the middle strata in line with those interests. Through the lens of this metaphor, you can see the possibility and potential for this, through all the contradictory motion that will be involved.
A phrase here is important in confronting the present situation, a phrase that another leading comrade of our party has been giving voice to a number of times: "It is what it is." What's out there in society and the world is what we have to deal with. You can go out there and run into all kinds of difficulties, including backward ideas and trends among all these different sections of people that I've been speaking about. We know that the basic masses, besides religion, are caught up in a lot of other bad shit, because of the conditions that they are subjected to under this system and because of the logic, dynamics and momentum of how this system operates—and not fundamentally for any other reason. But "it is what it is." At the same time, however, especially in today's situation—in order to fully reflect reality in its contradictory character and motion, and in order not to encourage the already existing and far too prevalent determinism and defeatism among many who are opposed to the way things are—we must immediately add: "and it can be transformed."
It is what it is... and it can be transformed—through struggle.
What is being emphasized in this formulation is the materialist approach of proceeding from the objective conditions that we have to work with—and work on and transform—and that there is, within those same objective conditions, the material basis—not a certainty, not some supernatural process or force, but an actual objective material basis—which makes possible repolarization for revolution.
All this underscores very sharply the crucial strategic importance of repolarization: working on those objective conditions, and working and struggling with people, to transform them in radical ways, not in line with some idealist dream or utopian vision but in line with the actual material reality that exists and, as a crucial part of that material reality, the fundamental interests of the masses of people here and all over the world, which lie with revolution and the ultimate goal of communism.