People will fight not when they are sufficiently hopeless but when fighting can convincingly be a source of hope. Right now, with the level of popular leftist organization, a fight against the American state would be a one-way bloodbath where the militarized police forces slaughter and imprison the small revolutionary opposition without much difficulty. Everybody recognizes this consciously or intuitively. Only a larger, better organized movement can change that equation.
However, this constant desire for combat isn’t, I think, particularly like to be how a revolution in the US plays out. We are not in the midst of a decolonial civil war like China or Vietnam, where the Communists rise as the most capable and dedicated combatants in an already open state of warfare. An actual revolution in the US is probably going to look much more like the Russian Revolution - a series of persistent, disruptive, intensive, and disciplined strikes and protests that cripple the functioning of the state until it collapses and the revolutionaries can step in an declare a new state in its place - there was no long and intensive period of combat during either the February or October revolutions. Most governments that topple look more like that - see Bangladesh as a recent example, though there was no one ready to push the revolutionary situation there to completion.
Seize on every systemic crisis to promote revolutionary, socialist, and working class consciousness through high-quality propaganda, cogent analysis, and practical organizational assistance to the people.
Enter into existing working class organization to radicalize or replace the leadership, as needed; where organization doesn’t exist, create it. I’m talking unions, cooperatives, neighborhood groups, minority rights and defense organizations, single-issue activist bodies, etc.
Constantly develop our individual theoretical and historical knowledge and our organizational skillset as part of a revolutionary organization.
Engage in elections firmly outside of and in opposition to both capitalist parties as a vehicle for building mass organization and consciousness. Do not expect to win, because that is not the goal.
People will fight not when they are sufficiently hopeless but when fighting can convincingly be a source of hope. Right now, with the level of popular leftist organization, a fight against the American state would be a one-way bloodbath where the militarized police forces slaughter and imprison the small revolutionary opposition without much difficulty. Everybody recognizes this consciously or intuitively. Only a larger, better organized movement can change that equation.
However, this constant desire for combat isn’t, I think, particularly like to be how a revolution in the US plays out. We are not in the midst of a decolonial civil war like China or Vietnam, where the Communists rise as the most capable and dedicated combatants in an already open state of warfare. An actual revolution in the US is probably going to look much more like the Russian Revolution - a series of persistent, disruptive, intensive, and disciplined strikes and protests that cripple the functioning of the state until it collapses and the revolutionaries can step in an declare a new state in its place - there was no long and intensive period of combat during either the February or October revolutions. Most governments that topple look more like that - see Bangladesh as a recent example, though there was no one ready to push the revolutionary situation there to completion.
So our responsibilities right now:
Build a vanguard party of the sort that Stalin describes in this chapter of Foundations of Leninism. That’s basically the bible for
.
Seize on every systemic crisis to promote revolutionary, socialist, and working class consciousness through high-quality propaganda, cogent analysis, and practical organizational assistance to the people.
Enter into existing working class organization to radicalize or replace the leadership, as needed; where organization doesn’t exist, create it. I’m talking unions, cooperatives, neighborhood groups, minority rights and defense organizations, single-issue activist bodies, etc.
Constantly develop our individual theoretical and historical knowledge and our organizational skillset as part of a revolutionary organization.
Engage in elections firmly outside of and in opposition to both capitalist parties as a vehicle for building mass organization and consciousness. Do not expect to win, because that is not the goal.