Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq... the Urgency of Working for Revolution in a World of Escalating Horrors, Sharpening Contradictions, and Growing Turmoil
September 22, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Editors’ note: This article was originally published on July 21, 2014 in issue #346. Since then, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has ebbed for the time being, but its criminal campaign of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine—and sharp ideological and political struggle over the nature and role of Israel—continues. The reactionary clash over Ukraine remains fraught and unpredictable. And across the globe, other contradictions are developing and sharpening—including the new U.S. military campaign in Iraq and Syria. There have also been important developments for the movement for revolution, in particular the eruption of mass protest and rebellion in the wake of the August 9 police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the role of revolutionaries within that; the August Abortion Rights Freedom Ride in Texas; and the announcement of a historic event on November 15 in New York City: “Revolution and Religion: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion—A Dialogue Between Cornel West & Bob Avakian.” In light of all this, we feel this article remains important and timely.
On Thursday, July 17, two events jolted the world. The first was the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, killing all 298 on board, in the midst of months of clashes between rival reactionary Ukrainian factions and their great-power backers over the country’s future alignment. The second was Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, which followed weeks of savage bombing and which together have led, at this writing, to the deaths of 370 Palestinians and the wounding of thousands more.
Anywhere you look, the global terrain is shifting, increasingly in profound and rapid ways. Many different contradictions are intensifying, creating the potential—indeed likelihood—for unexpected jolts and shocks to the world capitalist-imperialist system on any number of different, but inter-connected fronts. One New York Times columnist tweeted, “The tremendous amount of concurrent volatility in the world is unlike anything we have seen in years.”
Revolution will continue to cover these events in depth, but here we wanted to give our readers some basic points of orientation in terms of how to understand these developments, and what all who are outraged by the horrors taking place on a daily basis can and must do to hasten the day when we will not have to wake up to news of yet another savage outrage.
Two of the main contradictions behind many of the upheavals, crises, and transformations in the world today are:
First, the savage oppression and plunder of the oppressed or “Third World” countries by a handful of imperialist powers. We see this in the U.S.-created nightmares in Central America, where thousands are fleeing violence and abysmal poverty, and in the Middle East—whether the horrors in Iraq or Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
Second, the conflicts and tensions between rival capitalist powers are sharpening in ways not seen since the 1991 collapse of the then-imperialist Soviet Union. We see this in the confrontation between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine; the clashes between China, a rising global power, and the U.S. and its allies (Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines) in the Pacific; and on many other fronts, such as developing economic and military alliances, global trade negotiations, even environmental summits. (For background, see Raymond Lotta’s four-part 2008 series: “Shifts and Faultlines in the World Economy and Great Power Rivalry—What Is Happening and What It Might Mean.”)
These clashes are a product of the fundamental nature of the capitalist-imperialist system and the horrors it generates, and they are causing all manner of suffering and destruction: from the environmental crisis, to global joblessness, impoverishment, and inequality, to massive immigration and refugee crises (and the chauvinist backlash against migrants especially in the richer countries), to the global war on women, to the undermining of sustainable food production, to the mass incarceration of Black and Latino peoples in the U.S., even to the rise of reactionary religious fundamentalism.
This system is unable to address any of these nightmares because they are rooted in its most essential dynamics and workings: the relentless drive to accumulate profit in ruthless, crush-or-be crushed competition between capitalists and between capitalist powers. This is why these outrages are getting worse, not better. (For an in-depth analysis of capitalism’s driving dynamics, see “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change—A Sharp Debate and Urgent Polemic: The Struggle for a Radically Different World and the Struggle for a Scientific Approach to Reality,” by Raymond Lotta.)
All this—on the 100th anniversary of the first great global imperialist slaughter, known as World War 1, no less—reveals the unreformability, utter bankruptcy, and illegitimacy of the current world order and the system that created it, capitalism-imperialism headed by the U.S.
But these events also reveal that the rulers are not all-powerful and not, at the most fundamental level, in control of events. In fact the current world order is changing and fracturing before our eyes. It is important for people to confront that the world is not going to stay the same or revert to “normal.” And that the question is not whether the horrors will increase—they will in ways many people believe could “never happen here” (including events in seemingly “far off” places reverberating globally including right here in the U.S.). The real question is whether something radically different and much better can and will be wrenched out of this escalating madness and suffering.
It can be... and for humanity’s sake it must be. There is the vision and concrete plan for this radically different and much better world, and the line, leadership, and strategy to get out of this madness and get there. But taking this up and fighting for it depends on us.
What to do?
Fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution. This means urgently persisting in all of the components of the Revolutionary Communist Party’s strategy for revolution, as this strategy is being actively and scientifically applied to the developing situation. (See, “Summer 2014: Making Advances... Toward Revolution.”) This includes two key battles now: the mass initiatives to stop patriarchy and the enslavement of women and to end mass incarceration.
But especially important now, and throughout the whole process of preparing for revolution, are the two mainstays:
First, developing a culture of appreciation, promotion, and popularization around the leadership, the body of work, and the method and approach of Bob Avakian.
Second, wielding revcom.us/Revolution newspaper as a key tool in building the movement for revolution.
(For more on how these are at the center of the strategy for revolution, see “A Statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party: On the Strategy for Revolution.”)
For those already part of the movement for revolution, and all who want to support it or join in, dig into, promote, sustain, and spread these mainstays.
For those agonizing about the state of the world but not yet sure about the causes and solutions, actively oppose the things you find outrageous—like the U.S.-backed Israeli massacre of Palestinians. And keep fighting them until they are ended—wherever they occur, not just in the U.S. but globally. Second, work to understand the problem and the solution, especially by actively engaging the pathbreaking work of Bob Avakian and Revolution newspaper’s coverage and analysis.
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