Revolution #242, August 14, 2011


BIRDS CANNOT GIVE BIRTH TO CROCODILES, BUT HUMANITY CAN SOAR BEYOND THE HORIZON

Part 2: BUILDING THE MOVEMENT FOR REVOLUTION

Editors' Note: The following is the elenenth excerpt from Part 2 of a recent talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which is being serialized in this paper. Previous excerpts appeared in Revolution #232 to #241. This has been edited, and footnotes have been added, for publication. The entire talk is available at revcom.us.

Alternate Authority and Building the Movement for Revolution

"Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution" also encapsulates much of the principles for building a movement for revolution and embodies a key part of revolutionary strategy. This should be carried out with a basic understanding of, and an orientation of actively developing, the dialectical interrelation and interpenetration, the mutual influence, between the two aspects of this—fighting the power, and transforming the people in their basic world outlook and their basic values—and doing all this as part of consistently working for revolution, not for something else, something less.

In relation to the whole challenge of building a movement for revolution, it is crucial to fully recognize, and not in any way underestimate, the significance of various manifestations of alternate authority, even now, and the relation of this to what's captured and concentrated in "Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution." It is important to reflect deeply on and grasp deeply what is involved in the assertion of alternate authority in the way this has been taken up—that is, standing up against and asserting an alternate authority in opposition to the illegitimate exercise of authority by the ruling class and its repression and violence directed against the people.

There has been an ongoing process where, over a whole long period of many years, there has been a wrestling with the problem of how to make a breakthrough in the conditions in which particularly the basic masses in the inner city are confined, and the way the contradictions are posing themselves in those conditions, under the rule of the bourgeoisie—with the more naked and openly brutal exercise of its dictatorship and the enforcement of that through its repressive state apparatus. The question has been repeatedly wrestled with: how to actually find a way to recast things within all that on a basis which holds the potential to be favorable for building a movement for revolution, and for masses to come forward on a revolutionary basis, instead of being confined and trapped in a situation where they are pitted against each other, and so much of the time and in so many ways act against their own interests and the larger needs of transforming society and the world.

The difficulty that has been faced has been like the situation of archaeologists who have been digging around, knowing that somewhere in the area there are some crucial fossils and artifacts but repeatedly encountering obstacles and frustrations in unearthing them. It's not that all of the answers have been found, by any means, but—like archaeologists who find a piece of a bone, and one or two other fragments, that could unlock some vexing mysteries and open the way to getting a whole new level of understanding—through the beginning development of some elements of alternate authority, in the context of resisting the unjust and illegitimate exercise of authority by the repressive forces of the ruling class, a further sense has emerged of how to go at these contradictions in a way that holds the potential to contribute to the favorable repolarization for revolution that is needed.

We should not underestimate the significance of the assertion of such alternate authority up against—and, in the appropriate forms at this stage of things, in resistance to—the illegitimate authority of the existing state power. And there is already much to learn from what people have done.

Think about the patrols that have been initiated in several inner-city areas, and what those patrols are setting out to do: standing up—in the appropriate ways under the present circumstances—against the illegitimate and unjust exercise of authority by the existing repressive state apparatus, and at the same time bringing forward and embodying an alternative vision and principles for how people should relate. This is not the same thing as—and it is important not to wrongly identify or confuse this with—our Party's full position regarding revolution and communism, but it does embody many principles and objectives which are consistent with and can in fact make important contributions to the cause of revolution and communism.

Think of the potential this embodies. Here we have the preachers and these other people, when something outrageous is done by the police: a 7-year-old Black girl, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, is murdered in cold blood in Detroit and in comes Reverend Al (Sharpton) to recast things in terms of now the problem is violence against the people, and yes the police do it sometimes, but mainly it's this violence we do to each other. This just adds insult on top of outrage: it misrepresents who and what is the real problem—and where the real solution lies. Objectively up against that, represented in a very significant way by these patrols, is a contending, opposing view. This is not a matter of the people who are doing these patrols going to the youth who are caught up in the gangs, for example, and saying: we're going to step in the way of you and stop you from fucking up each other and fucking up the people here. Instead, what is involved is putting up a pole which, through its actions and the influence of its principles, is beginning to exert a certain force for repolarization—in a way that is favorable to the cause of revolution.

What is embodied in things like these patrols represents a very significant potential for the relations among the masses—and the way in which these relations are embedded in the larger relations of society—to be worked on, struggled around, in a way that holds the potential for a real realignment, to where the masses are acting in accordance with their actual, fundamental interests, as opposed to acting in many ways that are in opposition to that. To return again to the analogy of archaeologists making a key "find": this, in and of itself, does not represent putting the whole picture together, but it can be an important part of that.

What is represented by these patrols will have to undergo a lot of challenges and face a lot of trials. But, again, it would be very wrong to underestimate the significance of this, or of other ways in which a "struggling to be born" authority and vision—posing itself as an alternative up against the existing exploitative system and its oppressive, unjust and illegitimate exercise of authority—is contending, even if in very beginning and still fragile ways.

This can contribute, in an important way, to the phenomenon where the truth that "there is no permanent necessity" for the existing conditions begins to come to life for growing numbers of the masses.

And there are other important dimensions of this, including ideological dimensions: The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal); the speeches and tours by Raymond Lotta, Sunsara Taylor, Carl Dix, and others—these too are vehicles for putting forward an alternative vision and, yes, asserting alternative authority in the realm of ideology and morality as well as politics. They are important elements of putting forward the possibility of—and a living vision and a contending alternative force aiming for—revolution and a radically new society and world.

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