From a prisoner in the Southwest

Thoughts Provoked by Bob Avakian’s New Year’s Statement

March 15, 2021 | revcom.us

 

Editors’ note: We at revcom.us periodically publish letters from prisoners on revolutionary theory and struggle, as well as other aspects of human experience and thought, including conditions and struggle within the prisons themselves. We appreciate and learn from all correspondence from the prisons. The opinions in the letters we publish are those of the writers and not necessarily those of Revcom.us.

We face a Perilous road, with many obstacles in the way. But that is no reason to lose hope. We must assess the ground that has been covered. We must keep nurturing the land as the conditions are further advance for a Revolutionary Situation.

Bob Avakian said on pg 18

“An important polarization now is that between what can rightly be called decent people (including large numbers of religious people) who are opposed to injustice, and on the other hand those who are determined to revive and enforce traditional forms of oppression.” This polarization, these contradictions found in American Society have no choice but to further collide with each other. What must be done, What the Revolutionarys and communists are tasked with is preparing the masses for such collision impact.

It is true as Bob Avakian said, time is not on our side, and we, at the moment, lack the necessary numbers of people needed for a successful Revolutionary mobilization, or even a successful fascist resistance should the fascists choose to “go all the way” in their mobilization to fully consolidate power. That may be the present case, but lets not fail to not only acknowledge our setbacks and disadvantages, but our advantages and the potential possibilities that are before us.

One advantage I wanted to Point out to my comrades is that we have an actual scientifically grounded and disciplined leadership—in Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party. They, the fascists, have what they have, but they lack an actual stomp down leadership. Donald Trump, as loud as he was, proved to be spineless as he abandoned his supporters and got “cold feet” in taking his fascist coup all the way. The Republican Party proved to be more disunited and scattered than we thought originally. This led to the failure of their full fascist coup (for the time being). It is this dis-orientation on the part of the fascists that we must take full advantage of. To further elevate the sights of the masses, especially those opposed to the injustice perpetrated by this Capitalist-imperialist system, its state and its upholders. Revolutionarys must take all measures and options now made clear and in a sense, open, by not having a fascist Jackboot on our necks.

We can’t deny that the events of these past couple of years has further removed the blindfolds of many people, to the blatant open white-supremacy enforced in American Society. Where what hate they don’t say out loud, they showed in action. They showed in the ongoing discriminatory and senseless, needless murders of Black people at the hands of the police. Where numerous people rose up and should continue to rise up every time a police officer is not held accountable for ruthlessly gunning down innocent Black people, Black men, women and even children [are] mercilessly murdered on the daily by the police.

Those righteous uprisings thrusted politics in the lives of many people. The numbers are not yet at the favor of an emancipatory revolution. I believe, thats in the making, we are still confined to this capitalist system and its white-supremacist state. We are still under the same police who will continue to show the world that Black lives don’t matter, not to the Republicans who praise the murderous police. Or the Democrats who do nothing! but shrug their shoulders and shed crocodile tears. As they continue to run business as usual, of the oppressive capitalist-Imperialist system who’s very foundation and machinations rely on Black lives not mattering, any lives mattering, as that being the fuel that keeps the machine moving. Many people now know this, and once you see you can’t unsee it.

What they need to be assured of, what needs to be spread is the good news. The good news that there exists a different and better way. A scientifically founded and organized socialist system where Black lives and the lives of humanity do matter. This is something the masses will have to come to realize, as the conditions in society changes for the worst under this capitalist system, and as reactionarys further threaten more lives. But the people would even less realize this if the Revolutionarys and Communists fail at not contributing in the wave of this new cultural revolution currently manifesting, we must tip the scales in the culture leading it away from un-scientific, cynical, oppressive “gangsterism” and outright fascist culture. To that of the peoples liberation through the struggle against white supremacy and the Capitalist system. Further reviving in the heart of the masses, the revolutionary communist movement that is scientifically proven to be the means to finally emancipating humanity from the chains of oppression.

Yes the road in front of us is full of obstacles, we face many external contradictions as well as internal contradictions within the masses themselves, who need this revolution the most. It will take arduous work and strict dedication and many sacrifices in more ways than one imagines. But as Fred Hampton once said, and I don’t have the exact quote but I remember listening to the speech on the internet before I got locked up, and I’ll always remember how his words, though spoken in a different time period, reached through time and space and impacted my very being in a major way. He said “Yes I could of chose to be part of the high class, I could of chose to live in the mountain top with the rest of them, I could of chose to be a doctor and lived at the mountain top, but I chose to live in the valley with the people! and among the people So I can help and struggle with the people! I am a revolutionary,!! I chose to be a revolutionary!”!

Forgive me for butchering the quote, but it went something like that.

Well, those are some of the thoughts that came to me as I read BA’s New Year’s Statement. Also let me add, the Part where BA mentions how the communist had to endorse the vote for the Democratic Party to out vote the Trump fascist regime reminded me of how Mao and the Chinese Communist Party had to unite for a moment with the Kuomintong Party against the Japanese imperialist invaders. And after the Japanese where ousted, it was back to struggling with the Kuomintong Party. In a smaller yet major way is what can be said happened during the 2020 elections. Where it was crucial to defeat fascism at the polls in order to delegitimize any attempt at the fascist retaining Power. As the fascist in chief stepped down, and as the Democrats with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris holding the reigns now. It is back to the communists struggling with the Democratic Party as they too are ruling class representatives of the Capitalist-Imperialist system. Though not as vicious as the fascist in exercising their capitalist class dictatorship. The Democrat Party is still Part of the Problem as they represent and enforce, the very capitalist system at the root of oppression and suffering that the masses are facing on a daily.

Yes, the Democrats tend to show that they favor concessions, that benefit to help alleviate some of the oppression and discrimination their capitalist system dishes out on the masses. As helpful and as necessary as they are to the masses, it is the equivalent to feeding amazing and delicious food, throwing a bone in a sense, to an abused dog that you continue to abuse! Those stimulus checks, as necessary as they are to the masses, am I alone in saying that 1,200$, 1,400$ is no where near enough? That barely covers rent for some People! let alone other necessary expenses. But the ruling class would rather bribe the masses (cheaply at that) with a little money and grant a couple of necessary concessions here and there, in the effort of the ruling class representatives to pacify the masses. As certain liberal ruling class circles are also highly aware of the shortcomings of the capitalist system and the potential those shortcomings cause in the masses, that would lead the masses to question the legitimacy and the right to rule of the capitalist system. Something the upholders of capitalism, whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. All hold in common the strong desire to pacify and blind the masses to any alternative way that would spell the end of the Power and luxuries that come from oppressing and exploiting the masses. The Democrats aim at pacifying the masses through honey words, crocodile tears, and bribery. In the hopes to save their capitalist system. While the fascist-Republicans, in order to save the capitalist system, Aim at forcing the masses to submit through repression and amp up oppression, On both instances, and under both capitalist class representatives Partys, Democrats or Republican. The only ones who continue to lose and suffer, is the masses.

The only hope humanity has had at a real chance at liberation from the mental slavery and outright oppressive chains that keep the people in a deplorable state we find ourselves in. Is and has been, the pursuit of science and the science of organizing society under the mode of production of Socialism-Communism. That is scientifically developed and Proven, to once Successfully implemented. To evolve and coincide with the betterment and further advancement of humanity as that is the essence, the fundamental dynamics and machinations of Socialism-Communism. It is the reason for its conception being the polar opposite to Capitalism-Imperialism, and the answer to the contradictions in the form of the oppression and exploitation Society is condemned to and caused by its organization of Production under the capitalist system.

Science, Socialism-Communism, is the only real threat to the rule of the capitalist class and the capitalist system. It is the only real and Profound Power and the only effective weapon the masses could have to overthrow the capitalist class and its oppressive capitalist system. It is the reason and only reason why socialism-communism and how even science is so Demonized and distorted in America and in other capitalist-imperialist countrys. So as to plant that negative Seed and influence in the minds of the masses to be discouraged and never take up, that which is the key and tool for the emancipation and liberation of the masses. A true threat to the oppressive capitalist rule—It is no wonder the extra effort on behalf of the ruling class to bury and distort communism.

It is another reason why the capitalist class and its government further fuel the division among the oppressed people, in the form but not limited to, the harboring and facilitating a Black market, an illicit mode of living as a main, and for most, only means at making a living. Taking advantage of the desperate conditions and blind ignorance of the masses, both white and people of color, so as to keep them distracted, fighting each other to the death in order to survive, as is the case of Black people and people of color and poor sections of white people. In the case of many white people, the ruling class has fed them and further harbored for them the lies in response to the real economic grievances and calamities that are wrongly blamed yet encouraged on people of color like Black people and Latinx immigrants. When in fact, the blame lays at the feet of the capitalist system that oppresses and exploits as well as abandon just the same, white people, even if they refuse to acknowledge this. White people are made even more the fools of the capitalist class, as white people are cleverly manipulated to uphold and fight for their own chains of oppression. It is this political and historical ignorance and scientific blindness that propel many misguided white people, people in general to join criminal, reactionary, and fascist ranks, consequently pitting themselves against the communist revolution and the people who’s life’s work is dedicated to the breaking of those oppressive chains.