Revolution #243, August 21, 2011
Part 2: BUILDING THE MOVEMENT FOR REVOLUTION
Editors' Note: The following is the twelfth 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 #242. This has been edited, and footnotes have been added, for publication. The entire talk is available at revcom.us.
The Two Mainstays
Very much involved with contention in the realm of ideology, as well as in the political realm, is the nature and role of our Party's two mainstays. These are pivotal elements in actually building a movement—for revolution.
To take the first mainstay, a culture of appreciation, promotion and popularization of what has been brought forward by BA and what he represents: this has everything to do with projecting a radically different vision, a radically different political and ideological pole and authority—with raising what have been the extremely lowered sights of people. Now, if we were about something other than revolution and communism, if we were just working to bring about some minor adjustments within the established order, as horrendous as it is, then there would not be much significance to the new synthesis, to what it is that BA has brought forward and represents, to his whole body of work and method and approach. There is not much significance to that divorced from what we really do need to be about: the recognition, and acting on the recognition, of both the necessity and the possibility of revolution leading to a radically different society, and ultimately a radically different, communist world. If that is, in fact, what we are all about, then not only should it not be hard to go about building this culture of appreciation, promotion and popularization, we should be fired with enthusiasm and with inspiration for doing this and finding creative ways to do it.
To put it in very fundamental terms: People need to know about objective reality in order to transform it in their interests. And a decisive part of objective reality is that people need leadership, a certain kind of leadership, in order to transform society and the world through revolution.
The role of our Party as a vanguard of revolution—its present role and the potential and the struggle for it to become more fully that—is an important part of objective reality that people should know about and understand. That is why we need to talk with people broadly about the Cultural Revolution within our Party. How can you talk to the masses about the role of this Party as a vanguard if you don't talk to them about the Cultural Revolution in the Party?1
Once more, this all gets back to the basic question of whether we're really aiming for revolution and communism. If we were not aiming for that, then talking about the need for and importance of leadership just gets in the way of getting people to do this or that thing you want them to do, for this or that limited objective. But on the opposite side of that, if we are actually aiming for revolution, and working toward that actively—hastening while awaiting to the greatest degree possible at any point—then we should recognize that the fact that the masses have a vanguard and that they have a leader who plays a certain objective role in relation to the whole sweep of the communist revolution, as well as in the present circumstances and the present stage of that struggle, is an extremely important thing for masses to know about.
How can masses correctly evaluate the necessity and the possibility of a radical transformation of society and the world, what that should consist of, and how it can be achieved, if they are missing—or if they are in effect kept from having—an understanding of a crucial aspect of reality, which has everything to do with that? How can they act on this understanding if it is not brought to them? How can they ever emancipate themselves without the leadership they need to do that? And on the positive side, if we are really about and are consistently working for revolution, and we do understand the crucial role of leadership in relation to that, we should be knocking down doors to tell people about this and, as necessary, struggling with them about it. If there were an epidemic disease striking down people, and there were a doctor in the area who had developed a cure for the disease, should we be defensive about telling the masses about that, or should we be knocking on their doors and shaking them awake to tell them, "hey, you don't have to suffer this terrible disease—the cure may not be easy, but it's there and it's real"? Analogies have their limitations, of course, but the point is clear.
It cannot be said too many times: This has everything to do with whether or not we are really aiming to make revolution—to advance toward the goal of communism, together with the same struggle throughout the world—and, yes, to influence the struggle in the world toward that goal. We are, and we should be, seeking to influence the development of this struggle—including by engaging in active and at times sharp struggle over what this revolution is all about and what is the nature of the scientific understanding that is necessary in order to lead this revolution.
This matters to—it is of profound importance for—the masses of people, even if most of them don't know it right now. Look, let's face it—to invoke once more that line from Bob Dylan, let us not talk falsely now—masses of people throughout the world don't know a lot of things that are very important for them to know. That doesn't mean they can't learn them—that's where the role of conscious, vanguard forces comes in. That's why we go back to "for whom and for what": what is the objective and whose fundamental interests are involved in the work we are doing and the struggle we are waging? What this is all about and what we are basing ourselves on is not a "secret temple of knowledge." It is a scientific understanding of reality which others brought into being in the first place, which has been developed by others before us—and we're taking it, applying it, and developing it further. We should be very actively and energetically fighting for it everywhere we go, and in every arena into which we enter—in a living and a compelling way that expresses that dialectic of being "completely outrageous and eminently reasonable."
Look again at the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal): That is a living, breathing embodiment of the new synthesis of communism; and, as I've said before, if you can't get inspired about what is embodied in that Constitution, then I'm sorry for you—your vision and your aspirations are incredibly and dreadfully low.
So that's on the first mainstay.
At the same time, there is the crucial role of the other mainstay, our Party's newspaper as the "hub and pivot"—and the scaffolding—of the movement we are building for revolution. In this light, there is a need for this newspaper to do even better at not only exposing the system and bringing to life the necessity and the possibility of a radically different, communist world, but also bringing to life, in an active sense, the actual development and building of this movement for revolution, and the involvement of real people—not in a reified way or in a contrived way, but the actual involvement of growing numbers of people—on various levels and in various forms in this movement for revolution. Reading the paper—not necessarily in every issue, but over any period of time, and I don't mean decades—people should be getting a living sense of this movement and how this Party and its newspaper is at the center of this. It should be increasingly enabling people to act in unison—not in a uniform way, in a bad sense, like some kind of automatons, but in a unified way, in a basic and living sense—in response to major events in the world, all toward the goal, with increasing consciousness of the necessity as well as the possibility, of actually breaking through, making revolution and getting to a new stage and new platform from which to carry forward that revolution. This is what people should get—in living, breathing terms—when they come in contact with our newspaper, and with our Party wielding that newspaper and carrying out all-around revolutionary work on the basis of a line that is presented in a concentrated way in that newspaper.
To be continued
1. The Cultural Revolution within the RCP is discussed in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, September 2008 (Chicago: RCP Publications, 2009)—see in particular Part VI, "A Cultural Revolution Within the RCP." Also available online at revcom.us. [back]