Two Things About the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA That Everybody Needs to Know
November 24, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In the midst of intense struggle over police brutality and murder, particularly of Black and Latino people and what it will take to get justice, millions are hearing about the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). In some cases, they are meeting the Party first hand, engaging with and joining hand-in-hand with the RCP in the struggle for justice. In other cases, they’re seeing the signs in the streets and on the news with the website revcom.us. And millions are reading and hearing about attacks on revolutionary communists in the media, and from representatives of the very forces who carry out wanton murder of Black youths, like the FBI and St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson.
And then you will find others, claiming to be on the side of the people, who repeat and try to give credibility to lies, slanders, and attacks on the RCP that come from or serve the powers-that-be. You hear them echo the tired old “outside agitator” bullshit that the FBI and the KKK ran out about the heroic Freedom Riders who went to the South in the struggle against the old Jim Crow.
So. To all those who truly do want to see an end to the outrages and abuses coming down on people... and to the slanderers, the haters, the opportunists, and worse:
THERE ARE 2 THINGS ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY, USA THAT SOME PEOPLE APPARENTLY HATE... THAT OTHER PEOPLE CHERISH... AND THAT EVERYBODY NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT AND UNDERSTAND:
1) We are about fighting this whole wretched system of exploitation and oppression, and bringing in a radically different, liberated world. We take the responsibility to look at all the outrages and abuses and agonizing problems confronting humanity... we analyze where they come from and how they are linked... we fight hard against them and figure out how to get rid of them. And we do all this as part of bringing forward a new system.
2) When there is a particularly outrageous abuse, an abuse which absolutely requires and demands that people stand up against it, we take the responsibility to reach out as widely as we can to unite with every honest person, of whatever viewpoint, who wants to fight it, and together we fight as hard as we possibly can to defeat the outrage. We don’t view any particular kind of oppression as anyone’s property. We don’t think that it is negative when people from one section of society stand against abuses coming down on others, and stand with others to fight back. To the contrary: To do anything less, let alone to work against that, is to betray the hopes of the oppressed who really do yearn to see and know that others will stand up. And all our experience—right down to today, in taking on the outrageous police murder of Michael Brown in Missouri and in waging a battle against the life-and-death restrictions being put on abortion in Texas—shows that when such support is forthcoming, those who are under attack welcome this!
In other words, we are about fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution. This has been a hallmark of our Party for 40 years. Not only that—this has been led and fought for and insisted upon, no matter what the conditions or circumstances, by Bob Avakian, the leader of our Party, going all the way back before our founding, to the 1960s.
A simple but bedrock point of morality: Anyone who sees an injustice needs to fight against it. And then, yes, there will be lively debate and struggle over the source of the problem and the solution to the savage inequality and oppressive violence that keeps people down. That debate, dialogue, and struggle needs to keep a focus on the real enemy and the real attacks and abuses that urgently cry out to be opposed and ended. And honest, principled people must draw a line against attacks on the RCP—in any form.
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