Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia—May 1, 2018
The World Needs an Actual Revolution and the New Communism! And Nothing Less!
May 7, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The current world is a world of miseries, wars, destruction of the environment, brutal oppression of national minorities in all kinds of countries, a world in which half of humanity, women, are subjected to degradation and oppression in horrible forms. And we are approaching a key crossroads. In the most powerful country on the planet, which largely shapes what is happening in the world, a fascist regime that is implanting a fascist United States was enthroned with Trump and Pence. This regime and its powerful sponsors can shatter the rule of law of bourgeois democracy and maneuver to impose this fascist United States on the world. The Trump/Pence regime is cooking up a big war... this is in their sights and this is what they are planning (the “rapprochements” either on the Korean peninsula or in the Middle East are part of the ritual of war). To describe such a regime as fascism is not for the purpose of mobilizing people with exaggerations in order to horrify people. The horror that Trump represents is not another “swing of the pendulum.” What we face is a REGIME and not simply the worst of the reactionary Yankee administrations (be they Democratic or Republican). It is a regime that is radically restructuring society in a fascist direction.
At this crossroads, what comes into play is the future of humanity. The Trump/Pence regime faces the need—in the United States and internationally—to radically restructure the form of government and international relations, shattering the customary democratic norms that have legitimized the capitalist-imperialist system in the eyes of the majority. They have made considerable progress in turning into policy their fascist program of “America First” and “Make America Great Again.” The danger of war, potentially nuclear war, and the danger that this regime immediately adopt and “hammer” into place new, more draconian laws that eliminate civil and democratic rights, means that there must be a real urgency in the efforts of revolutionaries to organize and forge unity more broadly. In every country and with the revolutionaries and anti-imperialists with the fighters in the very “belly of the beast,” who are forging the organization Refuse Fascism (RefuseFascism.org).
The fact that this fascist regime is being consolidated is a nightmare not only for the American people but for the world. But there is a way to stop it, a path that requires courage, conviction and determination. Yes, there is a lot at stake, but as Refuse Fascism says: “This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!” But this does not mean in any way that it is calling for the usual capitalist-imperialist regime.
In no way is it an exaggeration to point out that the rightwing shift in the world has been rapidly consolidating. In France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, the Philippines, etc., the far-right forces—and yes, the fascist forces—have gained unprecedented strength (also underpinned by religious fundamentalism), even taking the reins of power in too many cases. The stupidity of believing that this is a simple question of appearances “because Lenin said so a little more than a century ago” can only come from empty-headed people who even say that what really exists today is “a dizzying growth (!) of the forces of the revolution,” seeking with pious lies to generate optimism.
Today humanity does have the real possibility, but not the guarantee, of building a radically different world: A world in which the age-old class divisions that have subjected the majority of humanity to exploitation and oppression by a handful of privileged people is eliminated. A world without imperialism, without wars. A world where the borders between countries do not exist. A world in which women are not raped, degraded, and murdered, and who do fully participate in social transformations. A world where art and culture do not denigrate or numb, but rather encourage the lighting up of the imagination. A world where dissent and the struggle to get at the truth are valued, and a scientific method is taken up to understand and transform nature and society.
But the vast majority of people do not see that this possibility is realizable due to the very functioning of capitalism-imperialism (which in some oppressed countries is intertwined with different forms and degrees of feudalism). Capitalism-imperialism oppresses and smothers the spirit, keeps people in superstition and ignorance. And even promotes this among people with a university education. Postmodernism, relativism and identity politics, for example, have disarmed people, limiting their ability to understand reality, to seek the truth by denying even its existence.
What we have to do today to overcome this difficulty is not to generate optimism with “post-truths.” The situation must be changed, the terrain must be changed, so changes are made in the political terms that truly matter to humanity. It is necessary to do work so that more people, millions of people, put on page one the possibility and the necessity of revolution, conscious of what a revolution can truly achieve in the face of everything that afflicts humanity today. And for this reason, people have to understand that the liberating science of communism—after the end of the first stage of revolutions in the 1970s—has been developed putting it on a more scientific basis by Bob Avakian, connecting with the work that he has developed, the new synthesis of communism (don’t put it aside because of the lies hatched up by the counterrevolutionaries of all kinds).
The new communism, put forward by Avakian, is the science, the strategy and the leadership for an actual revolution, and for a radically new society on the road to real emancipation. It is the key tool to fight against the system, and transform the people, for revolution. The basis for transforming the world and moving beyond the economic, political and social formations that today brutally destroy lives and crush spirits is in the productive capacity, technology and creativity and knowledge of the people. To unleash this potential, the complex reality of the world as it really is must be understood in order to discover the paths towards a fundamental change through a strategic approach for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road towards human emancipation. This concentrates Bob Avakian’s development of the new communism.
The new synthesis of communism embodies the major advance, and the potential for even more advance of real communist revolution, so it is engaged very broadly in society and transforms the political terrain, so that changes are made in the political terms in a way that matters; so that people understand for the first time or understand from new angles the question of communism and seriously get into the question of whether another world is possible and if, in fact, what communism represents is, as we consider it, an “actual alternative, a real and viable alternative that can and should be fought for, with an actual prospect—not a guarantee, but an actual prospect—of winning, and an actual orientation of striving to win and being determined to win, in order to actually bring another world into being that would really be emancipating for the masses of oppressed people in the world who are suffering horribly under this system, and ultimately for humanity as a whole to be able to enter a whole new era, free of what has weighed it down for centuries and millennia now: relations of exploitation and oppression, and all the ignorance and superstition and misunderstanding of reality that’s gone along with that and has reinforced that.” [WHAT HUMANITY NEEDS: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism, Bob Avakian, October 1, 2012--citation by revcom.us editors.]
The situation in the world cries out for revolution. But not just any revolution, nor with just any leadership. Avakian has made breakthroughs regarding the strategy for an actual revolution. He has developed a radically new conception of socialism, as the author of the constitution for the future socialist state as a much more liberating society and also on the road towards communism. And he has made developments regarding internationalism: the understanding that, in order to emancipate all humanity from the chains of imperialism, the whole world comes first. The challenge before the revolutionaries and before the masses of people is enormous. As rightly pointed out recently in Revolution newspaper (revcom.us): “We revolutionary communists are supposed to represent and speak in the name of the interests of all of humanity. And we are supposed to do so on the basis of science and nothing less. On that basis, we can in fact have a great deal of certitude in stating that what humanity needs, more than anything else, is a communist world, achieved through a process of revolutions (of the right kind) to establish socialist societies (of the right kind) as a transition and road, and a base for advance, to that communist world. So it’s not just communism we are fighting for, it’s the right kind of communism, the NEW COMMUNISM.”
It is true, there is nothing that would be more important to achieve in this period of history than to overcome some of these obstacles and make the New Communism widely known, engaged and appreciated, throughout society (and among all social strata) and throughout the world, along with its architect, Bob Avakian (responsible for developing and advancing this new synthesis of communism, and who himself is a concentrated expression of its core principles and scientific methods). And it is also true that “if we don’t succeed in doing THAT—if we don’t succeed in making qualitative and quantitative breakthroughs in fulfilling THAT mission—then not much at all will come out of anything any of us have done over the past decades, or continue to do today.”
This means that many, many of you (of those who are reading this statement) must get into and contribute to creating a situation in which many more people know about Bob Avakian and what he has brought forward; in which many more people discuss, debate, question, and engage the new communism. So many, a whole lot of you are coalescing into a real force—with growing influence in society. This (and not an empty optimism based on post-truths or political truths) would bode well for the possibility of new communism spreading and taking root to an unprecedented degree in the next period.
NO to Trump, NO to Pence, NO to a fascist America! NO to imperialist aggression in Syria! NO to Zionist and imperialist aggression against Palestine! No to imperialist intervention in Venezuela!
Break the chains, unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!
Cast away constitutional illusions, prepare a real revolution! Don’t vote!
Prepare minds, organize forces, prepare the ground for revolution!
What humanity needs is revolution and Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism!
Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia—May 1, 2018
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