The great labor leader and former General Secretary and Chairman of the CPUSA, William Z. Foster, wrote hundreds of articles and pamphlets, giving a Marxist-Leninist analysis to the events and struggles of the day. He also wrote a number of longer books, especially in his later years. 

Foster wrote three major books summing up his experience as a revolutionary organizer in the trade union movement, From Bryan to Stalin (1937), Pages From a Worker’s Life (1939), and American Trade Unionism (1947). These are essential works on the labor movement that every revolutionary should study.

Foster also wrote five major histories, where he looked at particular aspects of history from a distinctly Marxist-Leninist, historical materialist perspective. These important works are Outline Political History of the Americas (1951), History of the Communist Party of the United States (1952), The Negro People in American History (1954), History of the Three Internationals (1955), and Outline History of the World Trade Union Movement (1956). 

All of these books are tremendously valuable works of Marxist-Leninist analysis, but here we’re going to focus on his book on the history of the Black liberation struggle in the U.S., The Negro People in American History.

Foster’s analysis

Foster sets out the purpose of his book clearly. He writes

“The general purpose of the present book, written from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism, is to outline the growth of the American Negro people in relation to the historical development of the American nation. Concretely, the book also aims to stimulate further the present struggle of the Negro people for the fullest freedom along with their white allies, to analyze the factors making for the historical growth into ‘a nation within a nation,’ and to indicate the main lines of the young nation’s perspective of further social development.”

From this standpoint, Foster looks at the history African Americans going back to Africa and its colonization, through the international slave trade, slavery in the American colonies, the role of African Americans in the American Revolution of 1776, the rise of the Abolition movement, Republicanism, and the Civil War, Reconstruction and the counter-revolution against it, up through the Jim Crow period. 

The scope of The Negro People in American History is enormous, so for our purposes we’ll only zero in on a few points of particular interest so that we can get a look at how Foster puts Marxism-Leninism to work in analyzing the contradictions in motion in the history of the Black liberation struggle.

Let’s look at how Foster addresses the African American National Question, the central point of the “nation within a nation,” as he put it. This central question runs throughout the book, especially the chapters on Reconstruction, and the chapters on “The Communist Party and Negro Question” and “The Negro People As an Oppressed Nation.” 

Foster, first of all, recognizes the revolutionary character of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Foster says “The Civil War was a revolution, the second in United States history. It was a bourgeois-democratic revolution… because it brought about ‘a transference of power from one class to another.’” 

Indeed, the Civil War deposed the Southern Planter class that had until then “dominated the Federal Government” and put “the Northern industrialists firmly in the political saddle.” Foster notes that “The general effect of the war was to clear away barriers in the path of capitalism and to stimulate that system into tremendous expansion.” The main barrier in question was the outmoded and archaic system of chattel slavery in the South, which acted as a fetter, holding back industrial capitalist development, then centered in the North. 

Foster also astutely points out that the revolutionary demands of the African American people aimed “straight at the heart of the Confederacy.” These were the demands for “(a) the emancipation of the the slaves; (b) the arming of Negro slaves and freedmen; © the enfranchisement of the Negro people; (d) the abolition of Jim Crow and social inequality; and (e) the redistribution of land in the South.” Foster goes on to explain,

“The degree of revolutionary content in the Federal Government’s policy was always measured by the extent to which it adopted and was enforcing the national demands of the Negro people. The sequel showed that the Government never really made the Negro people’s demands its own. It always considered them something alien, to be picked up or dropped as political or military expediency dictated…” 

Foster explains that “The revolution, despite its final betrayal [toppling Reconstruction in 1877], brought basic advancement to the Negro people, achieving some of their major demands. Most important of all, it freed them from the terrible, centuries-old bondage of chattel slavery. It also won for them the legal right to vote, the right to education and to bear arms in the national defense.” 

But the betrayal of Reconstruction led to counter-revolution, disenfranchisement, lynch-terror and all of the other horrors of the Jim Crow system, including robbing African Americans in the South of political power, stripping them of their land, and thrusting them back onto the plantations under peonage and sharecropping. This period, coinciding with the rise of monopoly capitalism in the United States and its compulsion towards the super-exploitation of the African American people, marks the origin of the African American oppressed nation in the Black Belt South. 

Foster writes,

“Joseph Stalin, the greatest of all authorities on the national question, formulated the following classical Marxist definition of a nation: ‘a nation is an historically evolved stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.’ … On the basis of this scientific definition, clearly the Negro people in the Black Belt of the South comprise a nation, and those in the North and West constitute a national minority.” 

Foster then proceeds to look at each of these aspects of nationhood and explain exactly how they apply to the African American people of the Black Belt. He therefore raises the Leninist demand for self-determination. “It is right which must be conceded to the Negro nation in the Black Belt of the United States, to be used under such concrete forms as it so resolves.” This means it is up to the African American people of the Black Belt South to decide how they want to relate to the United States, whether that means secession, federation, or some other relationship. 

Foster’s The Negro People in American History today

The key role of the Black liberation struggle within the revolutionary movement as a whole has been on sharp display, especially since the uprisings that swept the country after the police murder of George Floyd. Clarity on the African American national question is therefore more important than ever. Foster’s book on the history of the Black liberation struggle in the United States is a key work of Marxist-Leninist historical analysis. It casts a bright light on the revolutionary currents and material contradictions that have propelled the Black liberation movement forward. 

As Frank Chapman said in his excellent book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives On Black Liberation and Socialism, regarding the strategic alliance between the Black liberation movement and the multinational working class struggle at the heart of the united front against monopoly capitalism, “...a key to building such an alliance is the recognition of the centrality of the struggle for Black Liberation in the struggle for socialism in the United States of America.” Understanding the material forces at work, not only the current balance of forces, but the historical trajectory of those contradictions, is absolutely essential for revolutionaries to grasp as we move forward.

J. Sykes is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism”. The book can be purchased by visiting frso.org/books

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #WZFoster #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican

There’s no system better at crushing dreams than monopoly capitalism.

When Claudia Jones' parents immigrated to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago in 1922, “they hoped to find their fortunes in America where ‘gold was to be found on the streets.’” (Autobiographical History, Claudia Jones).

Instead, they found poverty, Jim Crow oppression, and despair.

These evils disillusioned Claudia Jones and showed her the hypocrisy of the so-called American Dream. She would become a Marxist-Leninist organizer, theorist and revolutionary.

After joining the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), Jones never stopped fighting against U.S. imperialism. In her article “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women”(1949), Jones analysis analyzes the special status of Black women under U.S. imperialism and teaches organizers exactly how to fight back.

The proletarianization of Black women in the United States

“Negro women – as workers, as Negroes, and as women – are the most oppressed stratum of the whole population. In 1940, two out of every five Negro women, in contrast to two out of every eight white women, worked for a living. By virtue of their majority status among the Negro people, Negro women not only constitute the largest percentage of women heads of families but are the main breadwinners of the Negro family.” (from “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women”)

Capitalism’s super-exploitation of African Americans forced Black women to proletarianize and join the working class. Black working women were often forced to do domestic work, completing household chores for white families and then coming back home to complete more chores for their own family. Unionization and legal protections did not extend to most domestic workers.

It wasn’t until World War II, where the U.S. needed to recruit new workers to the industries as hundreds of thousands of former workers went off to fight in the war, were Black women finally allowed to do some skilled work and explore other fields due to the necessity for industry to hire new workers.

These obstacles, including political and legal repression, lynching, rape, and many other layers of exploitation, need to be at the foundation of any serious analysis of the conditions of Black women in the U.S.

No women’s liberation without Black liberation

Despite this fact, political organizations that fight for women still ignore the importance of class and the necessity of national liberation. Jones criticizes the behavior of suffragettes and white petty-bourgeois women for ignoring the African American struggle in their fight for women's liberation in the 20th century.

Again from “An End to Neglect,” “it was the historic shortcoming of the women's suffrage leaders, predominantly drawn as they were from the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie, that they failed to link their own struggles to the struggles for the full democratic rights of the Negro people following emancipation.”

Progressives in the fight for women’s liberation ignored the reality that there is no women’s liberation without national liberation.

These same attitudes appear today, albeit under different arguments with different terminologies. Postmodernist ideology, popular among petty-bourgeois revolutionaries and academics in particular, attempts to convince organizers within the movement to view the struggles for women’s liberation, working class liberation, and Black liberation in competition with each other.

In J. Syke’s article “On the Origin and Development of Postmodernism,” he explains how postmodern ideology cannot recognize the principal issue around struggles for liberation and limits people’s thinking to subjective and one-sided analyses.

Sykes notes, “The basis of the postmodern idea [is] that truth isn’t objective, but rather, that truth is socially constructed… [postmodernists believe] that any given “discourse” should “stay in its lane” since it isn’t capable of understanding where the others are coming from. In other words, we have no universal, shared experience. This mentality leads to subjectivism and relativism, and an inability to strategically unite different struggles. Further, it makes it impossible to name any particular struggle as the principal contradiction that drives the process, which we could leverage to maximize our effectiveness across struggles.”

Postmodernism divides while Marxism-Leninism unites. Instead of showing the historical connections that prove there is a basis for unity among all working-class women and focusing on the fact that Black liberation struggles’ unity with working class struggles have created progress and real victories for the people’s movement in the United States, postmodernism pits the masses against each other.

Discourse is centered around criticizing white people as a homogenous whole with the same political and social interests or an assumed shared consciousness. This abstract, eclectic argument refuses to acknowledge that the multinational working class as a whole can be won to support the national liberation movements’ struggles, meaning there is a material interest for all working-class women when it comes to fighting against national oppression.

Only the struggle for a socialist society, where the working class has the power and self-interest to abolish oppression against all exploited and oppressed people, can erase the contradictions at the root of the problems Black women in the U.S. face.

Black women bring the Black Belt Nation forward

In the 1940s, Black working-class women played a huge role not only in mass organizations, but in labor struggles as well. As both workers and wives of workers, Black women’s militancy and struggle helped develop the struggle against poor working conditions, mistreatment, and national oppression on the shop floor.

At the same time, it was still unusual for Black women to be in positions of leadership within unions and mass organizations. Claudia Jones used her writing to combat manifestations of white chauvinism and fight against the tendency seen in the labor movement to dismiss the leadership capabilities of Black working-class women. She stressed that the advanced Black women could pull intermediate elements of the African American masses to engage in the fight against imperialism.

Jones wrote, “The strong capacities, militancy, and organizational talents of Negro women, can… be a powerful lever for bringing forward Negro workers-men and women-as the leading forces of the Negro people's liberation movement… and for rooting the Party among the most exploited and oppressed sections of the working class and its allies.”

For a communist party to avoid opportunist and self-serving positions and remain dedicated to its role as the party of the working class, it's necessary to recruit leaders and allies who have a deep antagonism against the capitalist system that develops the consciousness, determination and drive to end it. Black women often face the greatest humiliation, disrespect and discrimination from the monopoly capitalist class. This mistreatment and oppression helps to create driven and disciplined revolutionaries.

Greater than a dream

Capitalism crushed the dreams of a young Claudia Jones.

That didn’t stop Jones from organizing and fighting back against the rotten system she correctly understood as the greatest threat to national liberation domestically and internationally. Even after she was deported from the U.S. for her organizing, she remained a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain until her death in 1964.

The conclusions Jones reaches in her article still apply to the struggle for the multinational working class and the national liberation movement today. Black working-class women’s unique issues cannot be understood as isolated, abstract concepts. Revolutionaries must continue to deepen their understanding of the special status of oppression of Black women and all oppressed women.

No matter the consequences, Claudia Jones never stopped fighting for freedom. Her writing and organizing continue to pave the road for socialism, the only system that can abolish national exploitation and oppression forever.

It is the responsibility of communists in the U.S. to erase the illusions of all oppressed people in the belly of the beast and prepare them for struggle. The struggle for Black liberation and women’s liberation is something far greater than a dream: it’s a reality, something that can be done and will be done, especially if we listen to the guidance of the revolutionaries that came before us.

Delilah Pierre is a member of the LGBTQ and Women's Movement Work Team of Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#RevolutionaryTheory #ClaudiaJones #WomensMovement #AfricanAmerican #OppressedNationalities #CPUSA #Featured

In Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle, the Soviet revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai wrote: “Throughout the long journey of human history, you probably won’t find a time when the problems of sex have occupied such a central place in the life of society.”

These were opening lines, written 105 years ago, to a message of undying love for the working class. In this pamphlet, Kollontai sketched out how capitalism perverts our relationships. It restricts the deep personal connections that we long for. To truly change our hearts, she said, we need to change the system. And we change it in the passion and solidarity of class struggle.

Many of the contradictions of Kollontai’s time continue today in new forms. The right wing demands that we follow patriarchal gender norms. At the same time, capitalist exploitation tears apart the financial stability and emotional bonds of family life. Kollontai teaches us how to avoid errors about this situation, and how this tension helps prepare the terrain for revolution.

Kollontai’s context

When she wrote, the people of the former Russian empire were waging a civil war against supporters of the tsar, backed by Britain, the U.S., and other imperialists. The people were defending the first socialist republic. They were in a mainly agricultural country, with some industrial cities. For decades before, factory workers toiled under brutal conditions. Peasants suffered the terror of landlords. During World War I, as men went off, women took their place in the factories and the fields. In 1917, some of these same women workers in Petrograd went on strike against the war and kicked off a year of revolution. They marched under the banners of “A people’s peace” and “Down with the tsar!” During the Russian Civil War, over 50,000 women joined the Red Army.

From the smoldering battlefield, the women’s movement bloomed. This movement brought with it a new view of family relations. Kollontai organized the first congress of working and peasant women in 1918. That same year, the new Soviet government decriminalized homosexuality, liberalized divorce, and allowed cohabitation outside marriage. In 1919, the Communist Party established its Women’s Section, with Kollontai in charge. In 1920, what was once a semi-feudal monarchy became the first country to legalize abortion.

“Sexual crisis” permeates the masses

The new socialist society was putting patriarchy and gender norms on trial. This is because it had gone through a sexual crisis stoked by decades of capitalism. By “sexual crisis,” Kollontai meant a widespread breakdown in the traditional family structure.

The capitalist sexual crisis permeates all of the masses. “It spreads from the palaces and mansions to the crowded quarters of the working class, looks in on the peaceful dwelling places of the petty-bourgeoisie, and makes its way into the heart of the countryside,” wrote Kollontai. “To imagine that only the members of the well-off sections of society are floundering and in the throes of these problems would be to make a grave mistake.”

Kollontai gives the lie to those who say that being gay or trans is a middle class thing, or a white thing. Neither can feminism be the property of rich women. The decline of the patriarchal family spares no class or nationality.

Material basis of the sexual crisis

The causes of the crisis, she says, are three-quarters economic, one-quarter psychological.

On the economic level, capitalism puts two contradictory forces into motion. On the one hand, it clings to the patriarchal and monogamous family. This is how it passes down property from one generation to the next. It is also how it maintains or grows the size of the workforce. On the other hand, the thirst for profit bleeds working families dry. Having one breadwinner is unsustainable for the working class.

On the psychological level, capitalism promotes unhealthy ideas about relationships, rooted in patriarchal gender norms. These include individualism, or thinking as if we are completely self-made and self-sufficient. This leads to loneliness, which the worker wants to fix with a “soulmate” to solve all their problems. Closely related is possessiveness. As Kollontai puts it: “The claims we make on our ‘contracted partner’ are absolute and undivided. We are unable to follow the simplest rule of love – that another person should be treated with great consideration.” The last factor that Kollontai identifies is women’s material inequality. This leads to chauvinist attitudes and double standards for the emotional and sexual rights women and men have on each other.

To get a taste of these economic and psychological aspects, think about how often we hear “I’m going through her/his/their phone.” Bourgeois possessiveness makes partners feel entitled to every one of the other’s conversations. Women’s inequality puts them in a position of dependence that often gives them no choice but to be on guard about cheating. This doesn’t stop at couples. How heartbreaking is it for an intolerant parent to spy on a closeted LGBTQ child?

From the bank account to the bedroom, capitalism wants us to base our lives around the traditional family. Yet it exploits our livelihoods and warps our minds. If we want to explain domestic violence, sexual assault, divorce rates, children’s estrangement, and LGBTQ homelessness, we need look no further than capitalism’s sexual crisis.

Scattered and unsystematic adaptations

Kollontai then explains: “The destructive influence of capitalism destroys the basis of the worker’s family and forces him unconsciously to ‘adapt’ to the existing conditions.”

To cope, workers adjust their lifestyles. They marry later to afford families. When they can’t afford them, they need abortion and birth control. They turn to prostitution, on one side to put food on the plate, on the other to escape loneliness or experience possession.

Workers’ adaptations are not immediately progressive; they’re a sign of strain. The thorns of the traditional family structure don’t mean that capitalism breaks it down in a good way. We should defend families left out in the cold, for example by fighting deportations.

The rise of LGBTQ and nontraditional relationships is another feature of the sexual crisis, and many make an effort to overcome the capitalist mindset. But Kollontai rejects the thought that new forms of relationships cleanse our hands by themselves. Today, we often see the misconception that some people are revolutionary just because they are queer, open, etc. “The sexual crisis will in no way be reduced whatever kind of marriage or personal relationships people care to try,” she warns.

But the working class’s adaptations are signs that sexist gender norms have rotted to their core.

The working class task: a labor of love

Kollontai sees that the sexual crisis marks at once the death throes of an old society and the birth pangs of a new. “It destroys the monogamous-property-oriented family. On the other hand, a greater fluidity in relationships between the sexes coincides with, and is even the indirect result of one of the basic tasks of the working class.”

The crisis unsettles capitalism and burns with desire for a different order. The working class’s search for love based on true friendship dovetails its struggle for emancipation.

Kollontai makes a comparison to illustrate. Picture, she says, a struggling business owner who takes from his company to bail out his family. “The family comes first,” he will say, and his fellow business owners will agree. In doing so, he undermines his class status.

Now, think of workers on strike. If one crosses the picket line and says it’s to support a family, the picketers will make clear: “The class comes first.” The others on the line also have families, but they know that they can only care for them through solidarity with their coworkers. Their families know it too. The whole class rises together.

Many who’ve lost a relative to police crimes understand. They seek justice for their family, but they know that to get it they have to raise their struggle to a higher level. They fight for all families who suffer from police terror.

Relations of solidarity rise above those of individualism, possession and chauvinism. Think of a woman who shouts back when a passing car harasses her girlfriend. Who wouldn’t envy her love? Think of a boy who stands up to a bully on the playground. What playmate wouldn’t want his friendship? Think of a mother who speaks up to a greedy school board. Who wouldn’t say her kids were lucky for her care?

Kollontai is showing that new relationships are not only possible, they are powerful. The working class learns to form true connections in the struggle. It will need love to change the system, and it’ll need to change the system to properly love. Cupid stands for nothing unarmed. He works only by using his arrows.

Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle can be found at this link.

Serena Sojic-Borne is a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization LGBTQ and Women’s Movement Work Team.

#RevolutionaryTheory #Kollontai #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #ValentinesDay

To mark the 132nd anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, December 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating quotes from some of his writings on the United States and its role in the world.

“Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters, the U.S. reactionaries, are all paper tigers too. Speaking of U.S. imperialism, people seem to feel that it is terrifically strong. Chinese reactionaries are using the ‘strength’ of the United States to frighten the Chinese people. But it will be proved that the U.S. reactionaries, like all the reactionaries in history, do not have much strength. In the United States there are others who are really strong – the American people.”

— Talk with the American correspondent Anna Louise Strong, August 1946

“Apart from those who are deliberately deceiving the people or are utterly naive, no one will believe that a treaty can make U.S. imperialism lay down its butcher’s knife and suddenly become a Buddha, or even behave itself a little better.”

— Statement Opposing Aggression Against Southern Vietnam and Slaughter of Its People by the U.S. – Ngo Dinh Diem clique, August, 1963

“The United States has all along attempted to control the Congo. It used the United Nations forces to carry out every sort of evil deed there. It murdered the Congolese national hero Lumumba, it subverted the lawful Congolese government. It imposed the puppet Tshombe on the Congolese people, and dispatched mercenary troops to suppress the Congolese national liberation movement. And now, it is carrying out direct armed intervention in the Congo in collusion with Belgium and Britain. In so doing, the purpose of U.S. imperialism is not only to control the Congo, but also to enmesh the whole of Africa, particularly the newly independent African countries, in the toils of U.S. neo-colonialism once again. U.S. aggression has encountered heroic resistance from the Congolese people and aroused the indignation of the people of Africa and of the whole world.”

— Declaration of Support of the People of the Congo, December 1964

“The speedy development of the struggle of the American Negroes is a manifestation of sharpening class struggle and sharpening national struggle within the United States; it has been causing increasing anxiety among U.S. ruling circles. The Kennedy Administration is insidiously using dual tactics. On the one hand, it continues to connive at and take part in discrimination against Negroes and their persecution, and it even sends troops to suppress them. On the other hand, in the attempt to numb the fighting will of the Negro people and deceive the masses of the country, the Kennedy Administration is parading as an advocate of ‘the defense of human rights’ and ‘the protection of the civil rights of Negroes,’ calling upon the Negro people to exercise ‘restraint’ and proposing the ‘civil rights legislation’ to Congress. But more and more Negroes are seeing through these tactics of the Kennedy Administration. The fascist atrocities of the U.S. imperialists against the Negro people have exposed the true nature of so-called American democracy and freedom and revealed the inner link between the reactionary policies pursued by the U.S. Government at home and its policies of aggression abroad.”

— Statement Supporting the American Negroes in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism, August 8, 1963

“The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous aid and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the United States.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“A new upsurge in the struggle against U.S. imperialism is now emerging throughout the world. Ever since the Second World War, U.S. imperialism and its followers have been continuously launching wars of aggression and the people in various countries have been continuously waging revolutionary wars to defeat the aggressors. The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today.

“Unable to win in Vietnam and Laos, the U.S. aggressors treacherously engineered the reactionary coup d’etat by the Lon Nol Sirik Matak clique, brazenly dispatched their troops to invade Cambodia and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, and this has aroused the furious resistance of the three Indo Chinese peoples. I warmly support the fighting spirit of Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, in opposing U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. I warmly support the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the Indo Chinese Peoples. I warmly support the establishment of the Royal Government of National Union under the Leadership of the National United Front of Kampuchea. Strengthening their unity, supporting each other and persevering in a protracted people’s war, the three Indo-Chinese peoples will certainly overcome all difficulties and win complete victory.

“While massacring the people in other countries, U.S. imperialism is slaughtering the white and black people in its own country. Nixon’s fascist atrocities have kindled the raging flames of the revolutionary mass movement in the United States. The Chinese people firmly support the revolutionary struggle of the American people. I am convinced that the American people who are fighting valiantly will ultimately win victory and that the fascist rule in the United States will inevitably be defeated.”

— People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Running Dogs, May 23, 1970

#RevolutionaryTheory #Mao #Socialism #MarxismLeninism

The following paper by Mick Kelly, the Political Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), was presented at the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) International Theoretical Conference on Fascism in the 21st Century in the Imperialist Heartlands. Sydney Loving of the Central Committee of FRSO also participated in the conference, which took place November 28-29, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Comrades and friends,

Let me start by thanking the National Democratic Front of the Philippines for organizing this most important event. In providing a venue for revolutionaries to address the big theoretical issues facing our respective movements, the NDFP is making a real contribution to our collective efforts to shatter the chains of monopoly capitalism.

The question of fascism is an important one, and it can impact one’s strategy, tactics, and a host of organizational measures; in fact, the fascism question can be one of life and death. There is also a wealth of important texts that address the issue, and of special importance are those of works of R. Palme Dutt and Georgi Dimitrov – both of which received wide circulation by the Communist International.

Comrades might be interested to know that the issue of fascism is a mass question among large numbers of progressive people in the U.S., given the wave of attacks unleashed by the reactionary Trump administration, Over the past 9 months, millions of people, in big cities and small towns, have taken to the streets. The extremely sharp struggles against mass deportations – including the uprising in Los Angeles and high level of struggle in Chicago and Portland, Oregon – make up one of the main issues shaping domestic politics.

We see the overall conditions as extremely favorable for building communist organization. As FRSO has been able to play an important role in these fights, we continue to be in a period of extraordinary growth.

What fascism is

For some, “Fascism” as an invective – a sort of swear word, the worst thing that you can call someone or some action of government – as opposed to a political category with a scientific definition. This is a long-standing tendency on the part of the petty bourgeois left, and certainly there is no one here who does that. Others, like the Trotskyites [1], see fascism as the product of a mass movement of the petty bourgeoisie. That is not correct either.

We are in agreement with the definition adopted by 13th plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International which states fascism is, “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

At the 7th Congress of the Communist International, Dimitrov pointed out, “The accession to power of fascism is not a ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie – bourgeois democracy – for another form, open terrorist dictatorship.” [2]

This is an important point. While it is true there is not a qualitative difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy, in the sense that they are both ways that the monopoly capitalist wield state political power, there is a qualitative difference in so far as one is very different than the other when it comes to democratic rights of working and oppressed people.

Fascism and capitalist democracy are different forms of political rule. The fact that there is real difference between the two means that revolutionaries will employ different tasks, objectives, and organizational measures depending on the form of bourgeois rule. Communist organizing in a period of open terror is for all practical purposes illegal.

Fascist governments wage aggressive wars characterized by extremes of national chauvinism. In fact, bourgeois democratic governments have always done the same and often resort to the use of open terror to maintain control of their colonies or neo-colonies. In fact, the use of open terror in the neo-colonial or colonial settings is a feature that is common to fascist and bourgeois democratic governments.

In his important work The State and Revolution, Lenin points out, “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.”

Why would the ruling class give up this “best possible political shell”? Stalin responds that it is because they have to:

In this connection the victory of fascism in Germany must be regarded not only as a symptom of the weakness of the working class and a result of the by the betrayals of the working class by Social-Democracy, which paved the way for fascism; it must also be regarded as a sign of weakness of the bourgeois, a sign that the bourgeois is no longer able to rule by the old methods of parliamentary and bourgeois democracy, and, as a consequence, is compelled in its home policy to resort to terrorist methods of rule — as a sign it is no longer to find a way out of the present situation on the basis of a peaceful foreign policy, and, as a consequence, is compelled to resort to a policy of war. [3]

Finally let me quote from R. Palme Dutt, “Fascism is not inevitable. Fascism is not a necessary stage of capitalist development through which all countries must pass. The social revolution can forestall Fascism, as it has done in Russia. But if the social revolution is delayed, then the menace of fascism becomes urgent.” [4]

So, there are several themes that should be circled back to. First, fascism employs open terrorism. Sure, there can be courts and parliaments, but open terrorism is what the fascist state is organized around and for. Secondly, fascism is a tool of the financial oligarchy – particularly its most reactionary and chauvinist sectors. And finally, there is the issue of extreme national chauvinism and fascism’s war-like nature.

To what degree is there a fascist danger in the U.S.?

In the entire epoch of monopoly capitalism, fascism is a latent tendency and therefore a possibility, given that the necessary conditions are present. In a context where the decline of U.S. imperialism is accelerating, where polarization is sharpening in the political superstructure, it is necessary to have a materialist evaluation of the objective conditions. That includes a realistic assessment of an immediate fascist danger.

When identifying what fascism is, in our view the most essential feature is the use of open terror by the ruling class, meaning the legal possibilities to organize for socialism are slim to nonexistent. That is not currently the situation in the United States, and communists in the U.S. need to utilize every avenue and opportunity to build the people’s struggle while developing revolutionary organization.

It is a fact that there are fascist groups and there are people in government who are pro-fascist. These elements are present in the military too. Their attacks should be met head on. The events of January 6, 2021, when Trump attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, speaks volumes about the lengths reactionaries will go to – as well as some of the limitations that necessity places on them.

The U.S. has always repressive place. Even as it went to war on German fascism and was an important part of the world anti-fascist coalition, 120,000 Japanese Americans were put in concentration camps.

Whatever assessment one has about a fascist danger, repression and resistance to repression need to be taken seriously. This means opposing reactionary laws and measures that restrict our democratic rights. It also means pushing back hard against legal attacks we face. Over the past 15 years our organization has faced a fair amount of repression, [5] and we have developed some capacity to deal with it. The most recent example was the defense of an immigrant rights activist and comrade who was charged with conspiracy to further civil disorder in the aftermath of the anti-ICE rebellion in Los Angles. We build a broad, national defense campaign and charges were dropped.

All quantity includes quality – and there is a whole political landscape between capitalist democracy and open terror (fascism) that could be very different from what we have experienced over the past 50 years.

Fascism is a tool of the most reactional monopoly capitalists to prevent revolution. In the U.S. today, we are not in a revolutionary situation. An effective strategy against fascism would necessitate building the broadest possible united front to stop it, like for example the Popular Front employed by U.S. communists from the mid-1930s on. If there is an immediate danger of capitalist democracy being replaced by open terror, we can and will adjust our strategy and organizational functioning accordingly.

Comrades: communists have a rich history of resisting repression and defeating fascism. It was Soviet soldiers who planted the flag bearing a hammer and sickle on the ruins of the “thousand-year Reich.” Our comrades of the Philippines have repeatedly demonstrated it is possible to grow and thrive in the context of U.S.-sponsored terror. The road might be a hard one, but our future is bright.

Let me close with a quote from the outstanding revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong:

I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown, and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

Long live proletarian internationalism! Long live the unity of the world’s peoples! Victory is certain, together we will win!

Notes

[1] Trosky states in Fascism: What it is and how to fight it, “The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.”

[2] Dimitrov, The Fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the fight for uniy of the working class against fascism, 7th Congress of the Communist International, page 127

[3] J. Stalin, Report to the 17th Party Congress, CW vol. 13, page 300

[4] R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution

[5] In 2010 more than 70 FBI agents carried out coordinate raids against antiwar and international solidarity activist – including the homes of a number of FRSO members.

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Statement #Fascism #NDFP #Philippines #Lenin #Stalin #Mao #MarxismLeninism

Tallahassee, FL – On November 7, the Tallahassee Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) celebrated the 108th anniversary of the October Revolution with performances from musicians and speeches from local activists at Groovy Blue Tattoos in Tallahassee’s Railroad Square district. The October Revolution created the Soviet Union and has become a holiday still celebrated globally by socialists and revolutionary-minded people.

The event featured a diverse mix of artists ranging from rap to punk and brought together activists involved in the fight for Black liberation and immigrant rights as well as student organizers and supporters of queer liberation.

Kaiden Rosa, a member of FRSO active in his local Students for a Democratic Society at Florida State University said, “I joined FRSO because we need revolutionary organization if we’re going to make a change in our time.”

The October Revolution resulted in the Bolsheviks taking power from what was formally the Russian Empire led by Tsar Nicholas II. Soviet power set the stage for worker control of the economy and advances in women’s rights, healthcare, education and international support for liberation movements. It became a public holiday in many socialist countries where it represents a triumph of the working class over their exploiters.

Regina Joseph, a long-time community organizer, closed the event by stating, “We should learn from the people that came before us who have made successful revolutions and stood against the imperialist powers of the world. We have to be united against our common enemies and tear down this rotten system once and for all.”

#TallahasseeFL #FL #RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO

In his extraordinary work, The Foundations of Leninism, J.V. Stalin, the principal leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin, explained, “Theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect.” In other words, theory is based on the summation of practical experience. General lessons are drawn from that experience, and then applied, tested and enriched through application in practice to our particular conditions. The 1938 work The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) – Short Course stands out as an invaluable wellspring of theory because it provides a summation of the experiences of the Bolshevik Revolution from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. It is a summation that we can and must learn from to apply to the revolutionary tasks at hand here and now.

Indeed, such was the value of the Short Course that during the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao Zedong wrote, “... in studying Marxism-Leninism, we should use the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course as the principal material. It is the best synthesis and summing-up of the world communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the integration of theory and practice, and so far the only comprehensive model in the whole world. When we see how Lenin and Stalin integrated the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Soviet revolution and thereby developed Marxism, we shall know how we should work in China.”

Stalin’s role in writing the Short Course

The authorship of the Short Course has long been a topic of discussion. Some have asserted that it was written by Stalin. Others have said it was written by a committee. The fact is that it was written by a committee of party historians under the political and theoretical guidance of Stalin. 

The book Stalin’s Master Narrative, edited by David Brandenberger and Mikhail Zelenov, shows exactly what Stalin’s contributions to the book were. He revised or rewrote significant portions of the book, and cut major sections as well. For example, he cut sections that praised his individual contributions too highly, as well as sections that overestimated or overstated the scope and strength of the counterrevolutionary Trotskyite conspiracy. Meanwhile, the section on Dialectical and Historical Materialism is entirely Stalin’s work. 

Liberals, Trotskyites, and anti-communist academics often look at Stalin’s direct involvement in the authorship of the Short Course and use that to dismiss the book as self-promotion. The revisionist Khrushchev even listed Stalin’s authorship of the Short Course among Stalin’s “crimes” in order to denigrate Stalin and bury this important text. Modern scholarship has revealed the “crimes” of Stalin in the so-called “Secret Speech” to be fabrications by Khrushchev, and this is no different. Khrushchev blames Stalin for self-aggrandizing in the book, but we now know that Stalin had no patience for such lavish personal praise, and we can see that he cut such praise heavily from the book. 

In any case, Marxists ought to understand that Stalin’s leading role in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet State placed him in a unique position to give an accurate, Marxist-Leninist summation of events, in the interests of developing communist theory and practice. The purpose of the book, contrary to what the revisionists and other anti-communists claim, was to educate the Party from top to bottom in Marxist-Leninist theory from a decidedly practical point of view. Indeed, if there is one current that runs steadily throughout the book, it is the unity of theory practice. 

The unity of theory and practice in the Short Course

We can see then that one of the remarkable things that the Short Course does is to unite the practice that it is summing up with the theory that guided it at the time. In this way, it looks at the major works of Lenin and Stalin and contextualizes them, explains why they were written, and breaks down their main points in relation to the struggles that they sought to inform. 

As the book traces the history of the Bolsheviks from 1883 with the formation of the Emancipation of Labor group, through the development of the Soviet Constitution adopted in December of 1936, it strives to draw out both theoretical and practical lessons that can be taken up by revolutionaries, and to show the dialectical unity between theory and practice. It is a work of historical materialism, after all. So in it we see how the important ideological, political and organizational questions arose from the material reality of the time and place in which they were born.

The Short Course takes the time to explain practically all of Lenin’s major works and how they contributed to the revolution. It explains how many of Lenin’s writings formed the foundation for the Bolshevik party. Thus, it explains how Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? formed the ideological foundation for the Marxist-Leninist party. It explains how Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back similarly formed the organizational foundation. And it explains how Lenin’s Materialism and Emperio-Criticism formed the philosophical foundation. In this way, the Short Course is an essential textbook on Leninist theory.

We can draw innumerable practical lessons from the book as well. For example, we can see how the Bolsheviks, despite being relatively small, were able, as early as 1905, to organize and mobilize the masses of the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire in order to have an influence that far exceeded their own numbers. It not only explains, but demonstrates, the necessity of armed struggle to smash the bourgeois dictatorship and institute the dictatorship of the proletariat: working class state power with the goal of building socialism and advancing towards communism. And it shows in practice how the Bolsheviks went about building socialism in the Soviet Union, for the first time in history. 

In its conclusion, the Short Course sums up its lessons. It emphasizes the central role of the revolutionary proletarian party itself: “The history of the Party teaches us, first of all, that the victory of the proletarian revolution, the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is impossible without a revolutionary party of the proletariat, a party free from opportunism, irreconcilable towards compromisers and capitulators, and revolutionary in its attitude towards the bourgeoisie and its state power.”

Second, it emphasizes the pivotal role of theory, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party of the working class cannot perform the role of leader of its class, cannot perform the role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, unless it has mastered the advanced theory of the working-class movement, the Marxist-Leninist theory.”

Third, it emphasizes the necessity of the hegemony of the working class party among the class, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the petty-bourgeois parties which are active within the ranks of the working class and which push the backward sections of the working class into the arms of the bourgeoisie, thus splitting the unity of the working class, are smashed, the victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible.”

Fourth, it emphasizes ideological struggle against opportunism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the Party of the working class wages an uncompromising struggle against the opportunists within its own ranks, unless it smashes the capitulators in its own midst, it cannot preserve unity and discipline within its ranks, it cannot perform its role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, nor its role as the builder of the new, Socialist society.”

Fifth, it emphasizes criticism and self-criticism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party cannot perform its role as leader of the working class if, carried away by success, it begins to grow conceited, ceases to observe the defects in its work, and fears to acknowledge its mistakes and frankly and honestly to correct them in good time.”

And finally, it emphasizes the mass line, “the history of the Party teaches us that unless it has wide connections with the masses, unless it constantly strengthens these connections, unless it knows how to hearken to the voice of the masses and understand their urgent needs, unless it is prepared not only to teach the masses, but to learn from the masses, a party of the working class cannot be a real mass party capable of leading the working class millions and all the labouring people.”

The Short Course today

The lessons of the history of the Bolshevik party are as vital today as ever. Not only is this book a textbook of Marxism-Leninism, but, as Mao said, the Short Course is also “a model of the integration of theory and practice.” We can see many of our own problems reflected in it, and by studying how the Bolsheviks addressed those problems, we can better understand how to move forward. The Short Course addresses party building, organization, the national question, imperialism, war and peace, strategy and tactics, and so much more, all in an accessible and understandable way. 

Often, when we read the writings of Lenin, we may feel detached from the broader context in which they were written. This book can serve to bridge the gap between those texts and their context, helping us to better understand their meaning and purpose. In that way, we can better understand how to apply the general theoretical lessons of those important texts to our own particular conditions. 

The problems that faced the Bolsheviks are not unique, and many of them still plague revolutionaries all over the world, including in the United States. Indeed, while our conditions may not be the same, the theory of Marxism-Leninism is essential for understanding and advancing our own revolution. We are still in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Our enemy is the capitalist class. Our goal is socialism, and ultimately, communism. And our way forward is the path first charted by Lenin, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks. 

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One of the major problems of revolutionary organizing has always been the contradiction between building movements of the broad masses, and those movements being led by a relatively small, disciplined and unified vanguard. How does a revolutionary organization, based on democratic centralism and united around a Marxist-Leninist program, mobilize the masses far beyond its own membership? The answer to the question is a method of leadership used by all communists from the Bolsheviks onward, called the mass line. Mao Zedong’s short essay, “Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership” is a key, systematic explanation of the mass line in Marxist-Leninist theory. 

After the Yan’an Rectification Movement launched in 1942, cadre education was given special attention. As a result, many of Mao’s articles from the period in Yan’an are particularly clear and concise. “Methods of Leadership,” from June 1943, is no exception. Along the lines set out by the 1942 Rectification Movement, Mao’s aim is “To combat subjectivist and bureaucratic methods of leadership,” by promoting “scientific, Marxist methods of leadership.” The lessons distilled in this short essay are drawn from Mao’s experience leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Chinese Soviet Republic, and the Long March.

Mao’s argument

“There are two methods which we Communists must employ in whatever work we do,” Mao explains. “One is to combine the general with the particular; the other is to combine the leadership with the masses.” This is Mao’s first point. 

Elaborating, Mao goes on to say, “In any task, if no general and widespread call is issued, the broad masses cannot be mobilized for action. But if persons in leading positions confine themselves to a general call – if they do not personally, in some of the organizations, go deeply and concretely into the work called for, make a break-through at some single point, gain experience and use this experience for guiding other units – then they will have no way of testing the correctness or of enriching the content of their general call, and there is the danger that nothing may come of it.” 

Too often those who claim to be revolutionaries stop short at the general call, but don’t go to the masses to organize and mobilize them. They broadly proclaim, “We need socialism!” but fail to link the call for socialism with the masses' felt needs and day-to-day struggles in a practical way. Then they fall into pessimism and blame the masses when they fail to take up their ideas. Mao, instead, suggests that we use the mass line.

Mao says that “However active the leading group may be, its activity will amount to fruitless effort by a handful of people unless combined with the activity of the masses.” In other words, the broad masses have to be drawn into the struggle. “On the other hand,” Mao explains, “if the masses alone are active without a strong leading group to organize their activity properly, such activity cannot be sustained for long, or carried forward in the right direction, or raised to a high level.” This is the problem we see with spontaneous uprisings and rebellions. They burn bright and hot and are a clear demonstration of the people’s righteous anger, but, without revolutionary leadership, they aren’t sustainable and eventually they burn out. 

“The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate element and to win over the backward elements.” This is an essential point. The relatively active, or advanced, are the people who want to fight back against their exploitation and oppression. They may not yet be Marxist-Leninists, but they see that things have to change and that the route to change is through struggle. These are the people that communists must find and organize with, shoulder to shoulder. By fighting together with the advanced and summing up our experiences, we can work to win them over to Marxism-Leninism. 

By relying on these advanced fighters, the broad, intermediate elements can be pulled into the struggle, and many of them can be raised to the level of the advanced. The intermediate are a much larger section of the masses, not active, but generally aware that things are bad and shouldn’t be like this. The advanced fighters show them the power of active struggle, and can draw them into those struggles. 

Finally, there are the backwards elements. These are the people who carry water for the class enemy among the people. They have all kinds of backwards ideas, and promote those ideas among the people. Some of them may be won over while others must be isolated. 

The important point to take away from this breakdown of “advanced, intermediate and backwards” is that revolutionaries should focus their attention and energy on the advanced, active fighters. By doing that, the effects of their work will ripple outwards to the broad masses like waves from a pebble tossed into a pond. 

Finally, Mao links the mass line to the Marxist theory of knowledge, explaining how we learn through practice, moving from a lower to a higher level, together with the masses.

“In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses, to the masses’. This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.”

People learn through struggle, and we have to start from where people are at and advance them step by step. Through the course of struggle, we have to sum up our successes and failures, subject ourselves and our comrades to criticism and self-criticism, learn from and fix our shortcomings, and carry forward that which is proved correct through practice. Then we apply these lessons to our mass work as we move forward. 

What does Mao mean by “concentrate” the ideas of the masses? This is an important point. A key ingredient to Mao’s mass line slogan of “from the masses, to the masses,” is Marxist-Leninist theory. It means using Marxism-Leninism to transform those ideas from “scattered and unsystematic ideas” into a focused strategy that can be implemented on the ground. It means taking the felt needs and demands of the masses, applying the science of Marxism-Leninism to understand the contradictions at work, and steering those felt needs and demands in a direction that brings the greatest number of people possible into conflict with the enemy. 

Mao’s “Methods of Leadership” today

Today, we find ourselves in the particular position of having no true communist party in the United States. There is no organized and advanced detachment of the entire working class, whose cadre are what Stalin called “the generals of the proletarian army.” We are therefore faced with the central task of building just such a party. But as Mao tells us, “A leading group that is genuinely united and linked with the masses can be formed only gradually in the process of mass struggle, and not in isolation from it.” In other words, party building is impossible to accomplish apart from serious mass work. 

This means we must understand and utilize the mass line every single day. Whether we are working in the trade unions, struggling for Black and Chicano national liberation, or fighting for a free Palestine, among many other important struggles, we are working to accomplish three objectives. As the Political Program of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization puts it, “Our party building work should be placed in the context of our three objectives: To win all that can be won while weakening our enemies; Raise the general level of consciousness, struggle, and organization in our immediate battles; and Win the advanced to Marxism-Leninism, thus building revolutionary organization.” 

The only way to build an organization comprised of the “generals of the proletarian army” is to recruit the best and most dedicated fighters in the people’s struggles, learn together with them through the crucible of day-to-day battles against the class enemy, and through the summation of those experiences, demonstrate in practice the power of Marxism-Leninism.

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #Mao

Assata Shakur was a fighter for freedom and an icon of the Black liberation movement. She came of age during the struggles of the 1960s and 70s, and everything that was good and powerful about that time, Assata embodied. The deep understanding that a better world is possible, and most importantly, the conviction to never give up. Never surrender.

Assata began as someone searching and questioning why life was so hard for Black people in the U.S. Over time, through her experiences in the streets and her study of revolutionary movements in Africa and the Caribbean, she became a Marxist. She came to understand capitalism was at the bottom of the problem and committed herself to the fight to pull it up from the root.

This clarity made her dangerous in the eyes of the U.S. government. Assata was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. For that, she was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which spied on, framed and tried to destroy Black activists. She was harassed, hunted and finally captured after a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Evidence against her was thin but she was convicted anyway and locked away. The government wanted to make an example out of her to show what happens when Black women dare to fight back.

But Assata refused to be broken. In 1979, she made a daring escape from prison. Socialist Cuba wrapped its arms around her and protected her. She lived out her years with dignity, surrounded by friendship and love.

Assata’s life was not easy. She paid a heavy price for her steadfastness: years in prison, exile and separation from her family. But she made the choice to stand on the side of liberation.

Assata is alive in the struggle for liberation for all oppressed people today. At the end of many demonstrations around the world, people still gather to raise their voices in her words: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” She is alive wherever people resist oppression and refuse to bow down to the existing order of things. She is alive in the fight for a better world.

She showed us what it means to be unbroken, and because of her, we know that the struggle for liberation cannot be stopped.

Assata Shakur teaches, inspires and lives always, in the fight for freedom.

#FRSO #Statement #Remembrances #RevolutionaryTheory #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #AssataShakur

The revolutionary struggle that brought about the first socialist state in the former Russian Empire in 1917 had its first major upheavals years earlier. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) had split into two factions, the Bolsheviks (meaning majority, led by V.I. Lenin) and Mensheviks (meaning minority, led by Julius Martov) in 1903. The RSDLP remained as one party formally, but the two factions, practically, had separate centers, presses, and programs. As The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) – Short Course puts it, “on the eve of the first Russian revolution, when the Russo-Japanese war had already begun, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks acted as two separate political groups.”

The Russo-Japanese war broke out in 1904, and the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks each took a different stance toward the war. “The Mensheviks, including Trotsky, were sinking to a position of defending the ‘fatherland’ of the tsar, the landlords and the capitalists,” says the Short Course. “The Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, on the other hand, held that the defeat of the tsarist government in this predatory war would be useful, as it would weaken tsardom and strengthen the revolution.”

By 1905 the struggle came to a head. The Short Course sums it up like this: 

“The workers' recourse to mass political strikes and demonstrations, the growth of the peasant movement, the armed clashes between the people and the police and troops, and, finally, the revolt in the Black Sea Fleet, all went to show that conditions were ripening for an armed uprising of the people. This stirred the liberal bourgeoisie into action. Fearing the revolution, and at the same time frightening the tsar with the spectre of revolution, it sought to come to terms with the tsar against the revolution; it demanded slight reforms ‘for the people’ so as to ‘pacify’ the people, to split the forces of the revolution and thus avert the ‘horrors of revolution.’ ‘Better part with some of our land than part with our heads,’ said the liberal landlords. The liberal bourgeoisie was preparing to share power with the tsar.’

In this time of great upheaval, the RSDLP lacked unity over tactics on how to move forward. The Bolsheviks called the Third Congress in order to assess the situation and formulate tactics that the whole party would be bound to carry out. But the Mensheviks boycotted the Third Congress and called their own “conference” in order to formulate their own tactical line apart from the Bolsheviks. 

The Third Party Congress correctly assessed that the liberal bourgeoisie didn’t want complete victory for the revolution but would instead seek compromise with the tsar on the basis of forming a constitutional monarchy. Therefore, it called for the proletariat to lead the bourgeois-democratic revolution, allied closely with the peasantry, since those were the class forces fundamentally interested in complete victory. The Menshevik conference, on the other hand, insisted that the democratic revolution be led by the liberal bourgeoisie, and that revolutionary socialists should make every effort to avoid frightening the liberal bourgeoisie and thereby undermining the revolution. The Bolsheviks advocated the revolutionary overthrow of tsarism, and the continuation of the revolution from its bourgeois-democratic stage to its socialist stage, while the Mensheviks instead advocated a policy of compromise and reform. 

Lenin’s arguments

Lenin’s book, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution appeared two months after the Third Congress, in July 1905. It explained and developed the Bolshevik tactical line as it exposed and criticized the Menshevik tactical line. 

There are three main points in Lenin’s book that must be emphasized. 

First, Lenin argued that the proletariat must be the leader and guiding force of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Thus, in Two Tactics Lenin writes, 

“Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion. We cannot jump out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for the conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory.”

For this reason, Lenin writes, “The outcome of the revolution depends on whether the working class will play the part of a subsidiary to the bourgeoisie, a subsidiary that is powerful in the force of its onslaught against the autocracy but impotent politically, or whether it will play the part of leader of the people’s revolution.” To do this, Lenin held that it was necessary for the proletariat to ally itself with the peasantry, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to isolate the liberal bourgeoisie and force it out of leadership of the revolution. 

Second, Lenin argued that the means for overthrowing tsarism and achieving a democratic republic was through revolutionary armed struggle. 

In Two Tactics Lenin writes, “In order to be able to exercise this pressure from below, the proletariat must be armed—for in a revolutionary situation matters develop with exceptional rapidity to the stage of open civil war – and must be led by the Social-Democratic Party. The object of its armed pressure is that of ‘defending, consolidating and extending the gains of the revolution,’ i.e., those gains which from the standpoint of the interests of the proletariat must consist in the fulfilment of the whole of our minimum program.”

Against the Mensheviks, who advocated for reform during a revolutionary situation, Lenin wrote, “under the circumstances … amendments are moved by means of street demonstrations, interpolations are introduced by means of offensive action by armed citizens, opposition to the government is effected by forcibly overthrowing the government.” 

Third, Lenin argued that the revolution should have two stages, and that the revolution must not come to a halt with the victory of the bourgeois-democratic stage. Instead, it must strive immediately to pass into the socialist stage.

Therefore, Lenin writes in Two Tactics, “The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyze the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.”

The Short Course points out, “This was a new theory which held that the Socialist revolution would be accomplished not by the proletariat in isolation as against the whole bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat as the leading class which would have as allies the semi-proletarian elements of the population, the ‘toiling and exploited millions.’” It goes on to explain, “According to this theory the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution, the proletariat being in alliance with the peasantry, would grow into the hegemony of the proletariat in the Socialist revolution, the proletariat now being in alliance with the other laboring and exploited masses, while the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry would prepare the ground for the Socialist dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the necessity of revolutionary armed struggle, and the importance of carrying the revolution forward from the democratic to the socialist stage: these are the most important lessons to draw from Lenin’s Two Tactics. 

Two Tactics today

After 1905, the democratic revolution in Russia entered a period of retreat, and wouldn’t be completed until February of 1917, after which the Bolsheviks did indeed push the revolution forward to the victorious October socialist revolution. 

Regarding Lenin’s book, Two Tactics, the Short Course says, “Its invaluable significance consists in that it enriched Marxism with a new theory of revolution and laid the foundation for the revolutionary tactics of the Bolshevik Party with the help of which in 1917 the proletariat of our country achieved the victory over capitalism.”

It is important that revolutionaries study this cornerstone of Marxist-Leninist theory today. Indeed, it explains in clear terms how revolutionaries should relate to the movements for democracy and the other class forces involved in those movements. It lays out the basic principles at the core of Leninist tactics. The lessons of Two Tactics apply to our own struggle in the U.S., where different class forces are united in struggle against monopoly capitalism. At the core of this united front is the strategic alliance of the multinational working class on the one hand and the movements of the oppressed nations and nationalities for liberation on the other hand. Lenin’s Two Tactics explains clearly the importance of the leadership of the proletariat and its need for allies. And while we must push forward and develop the struggle to defend and expand democracy in a revolutionary way, we must advance to the overthrow of the capitalist system and struggle for socialism.

#RevolutionaryTheory #Socialism #MarxismLeninism #MLTheory #RedTheory

Dallas, TX – On Saturday, August 30, more than 30 Dallas residents gathered at Pan African Connection Bookstore and Resource Center for discussion on socialism as it pertains to the modern People's Republic of China.

Hosted by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, (FRSO), the event was part of a speaking tour led by Sydney Loving, a Central Committee member of FRSO, who spent ten days in China as part of a delegation of Friends of Socialist China.

Loving began the presentation by stating, “75 years of socialist construction. We saw a country that has the largest economy in the world as measured by Purchasing Power Parity, which is a more accurate view than GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, which relies on the stock market and inflates the real economy. China's economy is the largest by industrial manufacturing. Even smaller cities are high-tech and increasingly green, life expectancy is over 78 years which is two years longer than the U.S., and of course where over 800 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.”

Loving continued, “Thanks to China's socialism they are completing an industrial revolution every decade since the 1980s. China is in the forefront of this new industrial revolution with AI, quantum technology, big data etc. China and the world have changed forever. But despite these advancements China remains controversial in the West, even amongst the left! Believe it or not. So, it's important to seek truth from fact as Mao says.”

Loving expounded on the particular advancements from the five cities she visited, Xi’an, Yan’an, Dunhuang, Jiayu guan and Shanghai.

Loving stated, “We went to Yan’an, which was really the cradle of the revolution from 1935 to 1947. The Red Army re-grouped there after the Long March, and the CPC [Communist Party of China] held the 7th National Congress there, 16 long years after the 6th Congress, because they were fighting Japanese imperialism and the KMT. [Yan’an is] where Mao Zedong Thought was crystalized and adopted. They fought dogmatism and made the decision to be the party of the masses of Chinese people.”

“In Jiayu guan, we visited JISCO, a state-owned steel company that the workers built the whole city around in the 1950s. Today it has 42% green cover, with ponds and parks– remember this is the Gobi Desert, “ said Loving.

“In Shanghai we went to a robotics facility where they demonstrated the advancements for surgery and industry, and a Lenovo factory where they showed off how they’re partnering with the school system to bring advanced tech into rural classrooms,” said Loving.

Loving concluded her presentation by saying, “China is not a utopia, it's a real place. Everything that we saw affirmed that China is continuing to build socialism that centers the people. China is building a future for all of us that is more peaceful and more equal.”

#DallasTX #TX #International #RevolutionaryTheory #China #Socialism

Noticiero ¡Lucha y Resiste! se sentó con Sydney Loving, participante de la delegación de Amigos de China Socialista, que recientemente regresó de una visita de diez días a cinco ciudades en China. De bases revolucionarios a ciudades de alta tecnología y desarrollo verde, la delegación presenció de primera mano el poder del socialismo a levantar las vidas de la gente. Loving es miembro del Comité Central de la Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Cómo llegaste a China? ¿Cuál fue el propósito del viaje?

Sydney Loving: La delegación fue organizada por Amigos de China Socialista, un proyecto político dedicado a fortalecer la comprensión y apoyo para China según la solidaridad y la verdad. Yo representé la Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad, y la delegación incluyó la gente de la Alianza Negra por la Paz, Mundo de Obreros, Internacional Progresista, Partido Comunista de Britania Liga de Comunistas Jóvenes, la Alianza de Liberación Negra, Libros Iskra, y otros.

Fuimos invitados por la Red China de ONG de Intercambios Internacionales, y durante 10 días visitamos Xi’an, Yan’an, Dunhuang, Jiayuguan y Shanghái.

Durante nuestro viaje a una variedad de lugares, tuvimos la oportunidad de descubrir cómo China está construyendo el socialismo, los avances increíbles que han hecho en 76 años de construcción socialista, y tuvimos diálogos maravillosos sobre cómo podemos rebatir mejor las narrativas negativas y las mentiras estilo Guerra Fría con las que estamos bombardeadas dentro del oeste. Al final, lo que encontramos fue un país encabezado por un partido político con una visión de futuro, con una meta que crea un mejor futuro para todos.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Cómo describirías el camino de desarrollo de China?

Loving: Para entender verdaderamente lo extraordinario que es el desarrollo de China, hay que entender la historia y cómo fue la vida anterior para la mayoría de la gente. Antes de la revolución en 1949, China fue totalmente devastada por el imperialismo y la ocupación extranjera, feudalismo brutal, las hambrunas provocadas por el hombre, el caudillismo y más. La expectativa de vida en las áreas rurales era tan baja como 24 años. En Xi’an fuimos a unos sitios históricos antiguos, y los generales de terracota y las estatuas de mujeres nobles estaban rollizos – porque la hambruna masiva era una característica de la sociedad por siglos. Entonces, el socialismo tenía que superar todo esto.

Fuimos para Yan’an, que fue verdaderamente la cuna de la revolución de 1935 y 1947. El Ejército Rojo se reagrupó allá después de la Marcha Larga, y el PCCh [Partido Comunista de China] tuvo el 7mo Congreso Nacional, (16 largos años después del 6to Congreso, porque estaban luchando contra el imperialismo japonés y el KMT) en el cual el Pensamiento Mao Zedong fue cristalizado y adoptado. Ellos pelearon contra el dogmatismo y tomaron la decisión de ser el partido de las masas de la gente China. Cuando construyeron las estructuras políticas y eligieron representantes al Congreso, tenían un sistema de platos hondos y frijoles para las personas que no podían leer para votar por sus candidatos.

Ahora, 76 después, vimos un país que es la economía más grande del mundo medido por Paridad de Poder Adquisitivo. Incluso en las ciudades más pequeñas son tecnológicamente avanzadas y cada día más verde, la expectativa de vida es de más de 78 años, y claro donde más de 800 millones de personas han salido de la pobreza extrema – y no solo estamos hablando en términos de cantidades de dólares. Estamos hablando de alimentación, ropa, vivienda, electricidad y agua, atención médica y educación garantizadas.

El capitalismo no es capaz de cumplir esa clase de proyecto. Lo lograron con el planeo central y la movilización en masa. Cada ciudad que visitamos mostró cómo el Partido Comunista está guiando el desarrollo que prioriza a la gente primero.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Cuáles diferencias notaste en la vida cotidiana?

Loving: Se siente sinceramente diferente a las ciudades en los EE. UU., incluso nuestras ciudades más grandes. Las calles están limpias, caminables, y bien ordenadas a pesar de lo pobladas que están. Hasta el punto de que las madres y sus hijos simplemente caminaban tras cada intersección, con confianza de que los carros tenían que pararse. Muchos vehículos y cosas son diseñados con consideración a las necesidades de los viejos, los niños y los obreros. Aun en uno de los hoteles, los trabajadores se reunían en la plaza para hacer baile/ejercicio por las mañanas. Fue verdaderamente tranquilo pero animado, con parques y jardines en todas partes, y muchas actividades gratuitas y acceso a la cultura y a sitios históricos.

En Xi’an y Dunhuang en particular vimos como miles de años de civilización están siendo preservados como parte de la identidad viva de la gente. Y ya que el turismo interno es tan importante, los museos y sitios estaban llenos de niños, ancianos y familias. Para mí, me quedó claro que mantener el pueblo como dueño de su historia y su cultura es parte fundamental del espíritu revolucionario.

Y no como las ciudades de los EE. UU., no vimos casi ninguna falta de vivienda. En diez días, viajando por cinco ciudades, solo vi a una persona pidiendo limosna en la calle con un código QR en el fondo de una olla. Compáralo con San Francisco o Nueva York, donde hay barrios enteros de campamentos.

Además de eso, la tecnología fue increíble. Desde pequeños robots que toman el elevador para entregar comida a tu cuarto de hotel a los aeropuertos donde solo te paras frente a una cámara y te muestra toda la información de tu puerta de embarque y vuelo. Nuestros anfitriones nos avisaron contra tomar el tren bala porque nosotros los occidentales somos muy lentos con tanto equipaje y seguro íbamos a llegar tarde, pero el tren normal también fue genial.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: Fuiste al noroeste, una región bastante pobre de China. ¿Qué fue lo que más notaste?

Loving: Si, fuimos a la provincia de Gansu, en el borde del desierto de Gobi, una de las partes más empobrecidas de China. Pero realmente nos impresionó lo que están haciendo allí.

En Jiayuguan, visitamos JISCO, una empresa siderúrgica estatal alrededor de la cual los obreros construyeron la ciudad entera en los años 1950s. Hoy tiene una cobertura verde de 42%, con estanques y parques — y recuerda que esto es el desierto Gobi. Es un testamento del nivel de desarrollo de las fuerzas productivas que ahora JISCO incluso tiene una granja lechera y una vinatera con la bodega de vino techada más grande de Asia (sí, probamos el vino — delicioso). También recorrimos la planta de poder solar de sal fundido de Dunhuang, que puede almacenar energía por la noche y un centro de control con IA para una red eléctrica inteligente que ayuda a reducir la producción de carbón en toda la providencia. Le preguntamos a un trabajador allí cuál es la diferencia tecnológica entre cómo funciona su red eléctrica y la de EE. UU., y modestamente nos dijo: “Bueno, nuestra red nunca se cae”. Desafortunadamente, eso me hizo reír – siendo de Texas.

Hay un gran énfasis en la modernización ecológica. Realmente están transformando el desierto en un lugar habitable y sostenible. Es un testamento de cómo van juntos el alivio de la pobreza y el ambientalismo bajo el socialismo.

China también está demostrando que la tecnología no es inherentemente anti-humana. En Shanghái fuimos a una fábrica de robótica en donde demostraron los avances en la cirugía e industria, y una fábrica de Lenovo donde mostraron cómo colaboran con el sistema escolar para llevar tecnología avanzada a escuelas rurales. La diferencia está en quién controla la tecnología, bajo qué sistema y para qué propósito.

Para China, un desarrollo que deja gente atrás simplemente significa un fracaso. Por eso se enfocan en equilibrar el desarrollo de las regiones, impulsando el occidente y el noroeste en lugar de permitir que la riqueza se concentre solo en las costas. Así, tras el éxito de los masivos proyectos de aliviar de la pobreza – que ni la ONU puede negar – la siguiente fase es la “prosperidad común”.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Cuál fue el papel del Partido Comunista en la vida cotidiana?

Loving: El Partido Comunista estuvo en todas partes. Digo acaban de celebrar haber alcanzado 100 millones de miembros. Aldeas, hospitales, escuelas y fábricas tienen ramas del Partido. En Jiayuguan pasamos por uno de los “Centros del Partido,” donde nuestros guías nos dijeron que las personas pueden ir a hacer preguntas o pedir ayuda de los cadres, hasta el cuidado de los niños.

Me repito, es tan diferente de los partidos políticos de aquí. A los funcionarios locales se les evalúa por cómo sirven a la gente, con el partido siendo una meritocracia en ese sentido. No puedes comprar un puesto de liderazgo como lo hacen en los partidos políticos aquí en los EE. UU.

De hecho, para ascender rango en el Partido, tienes que demostrar tu dedicación y servicio al pueblo. Un miembro del Partido, que era maestro y que también fue nuestro guía improvisado en el autobús, lo resumió diciendo que es un sentimiento de orgullo por lo lejos que han llegado y hacia dónde van. Y con buena razón.

La presencia del PCCh no es misteriosa ni abstracta. Son doctores dando consultas gratis, comités organizando la limpieza de las calles y obreros mejorando las condiciones de seguridad en el trabajo. Esto demuestra por qué pudieron vencer el militarismo japonés y al KMT: porque estaban, y siguen estando, profundamente arraigados en el pueblo.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Qué lecciones deberían los revolucionarios en los EE. UU. sacar de tu experiencia?

Loving: Sabemos que el capitalismo monopolista es un sistema moribundo, así que una lección para todos es que el socialismo funciona. Esta es la vida real, así no es una utopía, y hay contradicciones y mejoramientos que hacer en todo. Pero está haciendo el trabajo más importante que existe, que es mejorar las vidas de las personas y resolver problemas complicados enormes como la pobreza, el cambio climático, y los ataques a la soberanía y amenazas de guerra, con creatividad y flexibilidad en tiempos de cambio. Si tienen la oportunidad, la gente definitivamente debería visitar y ver por sí mismos.

Pero no es suficiente solo admirar a China. Para los revolucionarios aquí, tenemos que entender nuestras tareas. El mayor obstáculo a un futuro pacífico y digno para todos es el imperialismo de los EE. UU. El mismo sistema que bombardea Palestina, bloquea Cuba, financia golpes de estado en África, y quiere declarar guerra contra China.

El imperialismo de los EE. UU. es enemigo de la gente aquí también.

Como comunistas, estamos estableciendo liderazgo en todos los aspectos de la lucha de la gente y construyendo un movimiento revolucionario en la casa, para crear un partido de la clase obrera, arraigado en la gente, con la misma agilidad y claridad de propósito que han demostrado los comunistas de China por casi un siglo. Dicho esto, no hay una forma de copiar y pegar el camino de China que funcione para nosotros. Tenemos que aplicar la ciencia revolucionaria a nuestras propias condiciones, tiempo y lugar.

¡Lucha y Resiste!: ¿Tienes pensamientos finales?

Loving: ¡El socialismo es el futuro! En muchos aspectos, China está mostrando el camino, pero es verdad para todos nosotros. La gente en cada rincón del mundo merece vivir con dignidad y paz. Lo alcanzaremos si luchamos por ello.

#International #China #FRSO #OSCL #RevolutionaryTheory #Interview #Opinion #Socialism

An opportunity to build a vast revolutionary movement has arrived. People are writing to us from every kind of town, looking for an organization that can wrest power away from Trump and Wall Street. Trump is a professional liar, and one powerful lie is that he works for the people of rural America. But one look at the reality of rural towns, at the lives of low-wage workers and debt-ridden farmers, disproves this.

People in rural towns are angry. You have a right to be. And you have everything to gain from joining the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

This year's turnout for May Day, International Workers' Day, was the highest it's been in the U.S. in at least a decade, and small towns showed up in huge ways. The Fox Valley of rural Wisconsin brought out 500 protesters. Over 100 protesters came to May Day protest against Donald Trump in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In Iowa, where sanctuary cities are outlawed, an immigrant sanctuary city campaign is underway, and the MAGA-aligned governor has filed a lawsuit against a sheriff who spoke out against cooperating with ICE.

Life in the small towns of rural America is notoriously hard. Poverty, drug addiction, ghost towns, and the lack of jobs, clean water, social services – necessities that can be found easily in big cities – can be hard to come by. This inequality is not new; it dates back to the earliest days of capitalism. Wall Street billionaires act like parasites, sucking the wealth out of the rural United States.

Sure, there are racist Trump supporters in rural America. But that does not mean these noisy reactionaries are the only ones thinking about the way forward for this country. Revolutionaries and progressives in rural towns and villages can play a critical role. Where reactionaries have some strength, we can become a beacon of progress. Like a lighthouse, you and those you organize can illuminate a road to something better. We can draw in all who are dissatisfied with Trump and the billionaires. By doing this, we will transform the political terrain.

FRSO is a national organization, with experienced organizers who can help you build revolutionary organization right where you are.

FRSO is on the move and is moving others – from town to countryside and the big cities too. All revolutionary-minded people in rural towns are welcome to join us and turn their homes into that beacon of progress. Capitalism has failed rural America. Trump works for himself, the big banks, and is a member of a corporate elite that must go.

Getting rid of the system that serves the rich and powerful is the only way rest of us can improve our lives. Socialism, a society where economic and political power is in the hands of the working class, is what we need. Our future is bright. A new day is coming.

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Statement #Rural #PeoplesStruggles

Minneapolis, MN – On Friday, August 15, more than 50 Twin Cites residents gathered at Lucy Parsons Center for the event “China: A Contrasting Vision for the World,” hosted by Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) talking about China and constructing a socialist society.

While China is growing influence in the world, it is being seriously threatened, both militarily and economically, by the U.S. and other Western powers. The Western press is constantly vilifying the country, pumping out disinformation on a near-daily basis. It was the goal of this panel to help dispel some of these myths.

Sarah Martin, a longtime member of WAMM, opened the panel by talking about some of the ways China is building socialism, “from ground-breaking achievements, poverty alleviation, and environmental protection to China’s role in promoting a global future built on mutual prosperity and a just peace.” Martin then introduced the main speaker for the event, Sydney Loving.

Loving, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s Central Committee, went to China as part of the Friends of Socialist China delegation. She traveled to five different cities, including Xa’An and Shanghai, to see up close how China is building socialism.

Loving began the presentation with a brief history of the conditions of pre-revolution China, stating, “The countryside was being looted by elites, you had millions of deaths due to famines.” Indeed, “starvation was a feature of society. There was a life expectancy of around 24 years in the countryside, opium addiction was rampant, warlords ruled vast regions of the country. It was hell.”

Loving contrasted that with conditions in current-day China, stating, “With 75 years of socialist construction it has the largest economy, the largest industrial manufacturing and trading economy, absolute poverty eliminated, and life expectancy that is two years longer than the U.S.”

Loving continued, “China is the only renewable superpower in the world. 60% of all wind and solar production in the world is in China, 98% of all electric buses are made in China, 70% of all high-speed rail is in China, two-thirds of electric vehicles are in China, and they are a world leader in biodiversity and forestation.”

With wealth inequality growing, violence increasing around the world, and climate change continuing rapidly, the world is now more than ever looking to China for how to build an equal and just society, one that puts people's needs first. Panels like this are critical for understanding the path forward.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #International #China #Socialism #RevolutionaryTheory #WAMM

Orlando, FL – On August 12, the Orlando District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization held a presentation and discussion on the organization’s political program. The topics covered included a brief introduction of FRSO, its analysis of class in the United States, the organization’s strategy for revolution, and how it organizes to build the people’s struggles to fight for revolutionary change.

Cassia Laham, who has been organizing with Freedom Road for 13 years, introduced the event. “We in Freedom Road aren’t about just reading theory or getting lost in debate on this or that issue; we’re about putting the science of revolution into practice in order to end this rotten system of exploitation and oppression,” said Laham.

Jacob Muldoon, the district organizer for FRSO Orlando, led the main presentation. Throughout the presentation, he paused and asked the audience for input on questions such as “What is the definition of class?” and “What are some different strategies to make change?”

Muldoon emphasized the FRSO’s program is not a set of policies for how the country should be governed after the revolution, nor was it written by a select group of academics and intellectuals. Rather, the contents of the political program are a result of FRSO’s collective efforts of applying Marxism-Leninism to the day-to-day struggles its members are building and leading across the country.

“Our basic strategy for revolution is building a united front against monopoly capitalism, under the leadership of the working class and its political party, with a strategic alliance between the multinational working class and oppressed nationalities at the core of this united front,” stated Muldoon.

The event was held at the Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar, a venue which has become a hub for the local leftist and artist community. FRSO Orlando’s next event will be a report-back from the People’s Republic of China, hosted by central committee member Sydney Loving on September 2. Time and location to be determined. Visit @frso_orlando on Instagram for more information.

#OrlandoFL #FL #RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO

Fight Back! sat down with Sydney Loving, a participant in the 2025 Friends of Socialist China delegation, which recently returned from a ten-day visit across five cities in China. From revolutionary bases to high-tech cities and green development, the delegation witnessed firsthand the power of socialism to uplift the lives of the people. Loving is a member of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Fight Back!: How did you go to China? What was the purpose of the trip?

Sydney Loving: The delegation was organized by Friends of Socialist China, a political project aiming to strengthen understanding and support for China on the basis of solidarity and truth. I repped Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the delegation included folks from Black Alliance for Peace, Workers World, Progressive International, Communist Party of Britain Young Communist League, Black Liberation Alliance, Qiao Collective, Iskra Books, and others.

We were invited by the China NGO Network for International Exchanges, and over ten days we visited Xi’an, Yan’an, Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, and Shanghai.

Traveling to a range of areas, we got to investigate how China is building socialism, the incredible advances they’ve made in 76 years of socialist construction, and we had awesome dialogues about how we can better counter the negative narratives and Cold War-type lies we’re bombarded with in the West. Ultimately what we found was a country led by a forward-thinking political party, with a purpose that’s carving out a better future for everybody.

Fight Back!: How would you describe China’s path of development?

Loving: To really understand how remarkable China’s development is, you’ve got to understand the history and what life was like for most people. Before the revolution in 1949, China was totally devastated by imperialism and foreign occupation, brutal feudalism, man-made famines, warlordism, etc. Life expectancy in the rural areas was as low as 24 years old. In Xi’an we went to some ancient history sites, and the terracotta generals and statues of noblewomen were plump – because mass starvation was a feature of society for centuries. So, socialism had all this to overcome.

We went to Yan’an, which was really the cradle of the revolution from 1935 to 1947. The Red Army re-grouped there after the Long March, and the CPC [Communist Party of China] held the 7th National Congress there, (16 long years after the 6th Congress, because they were fighting Japanese imperialism and the KMT) where Mao Zedong Thought was crystalized and adopted. They fought dogmatism and made the decision to be the party of the masses of Chinese people. When they built the political structures and elected representatives to the Congress, they had a system of bowls and beans for people who couldn’t read to vote for their candidates

Now, 76 years later, we saw a country that’s the largest economy in the world as measured by Purchasing Power Parity. Even smaller cities are high-tech and increasingly green, life expectancy is over 78 years, and of course where over 800 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty– and we’re not just talking by dollar amounts. We’re talking guaranteed food, clothing, housing, electricity and water, healthcare and education.

Capitalism is just not capable of that kind of project. They did it through central planning and mass mobilization. Every single city we visited showed how the Communist Party is guiding development that puts people first.

Fight Back!: What differences did you notice in daily life?

Loving: It really feels very different than cities in the U.S., even our biggest cities. The streets are clean, walkable, and well-organized despite how populous they are. To the point where moms and their kids would just walk across the intersection, confident the cars would stop for them. Lots of electric vehicles and things are designed with the needs of the elderly, children and workers in mind. Even at one of our hotels, the workers would all meet in the quad for a dance/exercise in the mornings. It was really peaceful but lively, with parks and gardens everywhere, and tons of free activities and access to culture and historical sites.

In Xi’an and Dunhuang especially we saw how thousands of years of civilization are being preserved as part of people’s living identity. And with internal tourism being a big deal, museums and sites were full of schoolkids, seniors and families. To me it was clear that having history and culture belong to the people is part of the revolutionary spirit.

And unlike cities in the U.S., we saw almost no homelessness. In ten days, traveling around five cities, I saw just one person begging on the street with a QR code in the bottom of a pan. Compare that to San Francisco or New York, where you have entire neighborhoods of encampments.

Also, the technology was unreal. From little robots that take the elevator to deliver food to your hotel room to the airports where you just stand in front of a camera and it displays all your gate and flight info. Our hosts advised against us taking the bullet train because we Westerners were too slow with all our luggage and definitely would’ve been late, but the normal train was awesome, too.

Fight Back!: You went to the northwest, a poorer region of China. What stood out?

Loving: Yes we went to Gansu Province, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, one of the most historically impoverished parts of China. But we were really blown away by what they’re doing there.

In Jiayuguan, we visited JISCO, a state-owned steel company that the workers built the whole city around in the 1950s. Today it has 42% green cover, with ponds and parks– remember this is the Gobi Desert. It’s a testament to the level of development of the productive forces that now JISCO even has a dairy farm and a winery with the largest indoor wine cellar in Asia (yes we tasted the wine – delicious). We also toured the Dunhuang molten salt solar power plant, which can store energy at night, and a smart grid AI control center that helps reduce carbon output across the province. We asked a worker there what’s the difference in tech between how their power grid works vs. in the U.S., and he modestly said, “Well our grid never goes down.” Unfortunately, I got a kick out of that – being from Texas.

There’s a big emphasis on ecological modernization. They’re really transforming a desert into a livable, sustainable place. It’s a testament to how poverty alleviation and environmentalism go hand in hand under socialism.

China is also proving that tech isn’t inherently anti-human. In Shanghai we went to a robotics facility where they demonstrated the advancements for surgery and industry, and a Lenovo factory where they showed off how they’re partnering with the school system to bring advanced tech into rural classrooms. The difference is who controls tech, under what system, and for what purpose.

For China, development that leaves some folks behind means failure. That’s why they focus on balancing the regions, uplifting the west and northwest instead of letting wealth pool on the coasts. So after the success of the massive poverty alleviation projects -which even the UN can’t deny – the next phase is “common prosperity.”

Fight Back!: What was the role of the Communist Party in daily life?

Loving: The Communist Party was everywhere. I mean they just celebrated reaching 100 million members. Villages, hospitals, schools and factories have Party branches. In Jiayuguan we passed one of the “Party Centers,” where our guides told us people can go and ask questions or get help from cadres, even childcare.

Again, it’s so different than political parties here. Local officials are graded on how well they serve the people, with the party being a meritocracy in that sense. You can’t buy your way into leadership like they do for political parties here in the U.S.

Actually, to rise the ranks in the Party, you have to demonstrate your dedication and service to the people. One Party member who was a teacher and an impromptu tour guide on our bus summed it up by saying it’s a feeling of pride in how far they’ve come and where they’re going. And for a good reason.

The CPC’s presence isn’t shadowy or abstract. It’s doctors giving free checkups, committees organizing street sanitation, workers shoring up safety conditions. It proves why they were able to defeat Japanese militarism and the KMT: because they were, and still are, deeply rooted in the masses.

Fight Back!: What lessons should revolutionaries in the U.S. draw from your experience?

Loving: We know that monopoly capitalism is a dying system, so one of the lessons for everyone is that socialism works. This is real life, so it’s not a utopia, and there’s contradictions and improvements to be made in everything. But it’s doing the most important work there is, which is lifting up people’s lives and solving huge complicated problems like poverty, climate change, and attacks on sovereignty and threats of war, with creativity and flexibility in changing times. If you get the chance, folks should definitely visit and see for yourselves.

But it’s not enough to just admire China. For revolutionaries here, we have to understand our tasks. The biggest obstacle to a peaceful, dignified future for everybody is U.S. imperialism. The same system that bombs Palestine, blockades Cuba, funds coups in Africa, and they’d like to wage war on China.

U.S. imperialism is the enemy of the people here, too.

As communists, we are earning leadership in all the strands of the people’s struggle and building a revolutionary movement at home, to create a party of the working class, rooted in the people, with the same agility and clarity of purpose that China’s communists have shown for almost a century. That being said, there’s no copy-pasting of China’s path that will work for us. We have to apply revolutionary science to our own conditions, time and place.

Fight Back!: Final thoughts?

Loving: Socialism is the future! In many respects China is showing the way, but it’s true for all of us. People in every corner of the world deserve to live with dignity and peace. We will get there if we fight for it.

#International #China #FRSO #RevolutionaryTheory #Opinion #Interview #Socialism #Feature

Minneapolis, MN – An online event to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is set for Thursday, May 29, at 5:00pm Pacific, 6:00pm Mountain, 7:00pm Central, 8:00pm Eastern time.

Founded in 1985, FRSO emerged from the New Communist Movement and is now the leading Marxist-Leninist organization in the U.S.

Speakers at the event will include Jess Sundin, the Twin Cites District Organizer; Fernando Figueroa, of the FRSO Standing Committee member and rank-and-file Teamster; Frank Chapman, FRSO Central Committee member and Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; Marisol Márquez, District Organizer of the Los Angeles District of the FRSO and a leader of the Legalization For All network; and FRSO Political Secretary Mick Kelly.

“This will be a great event,” said Mick Kelly, a founding member of the FRSO, “For the past 40 years we have consistently found our bearings as revolutionaries, and we have consistently made real contributions to the people’s struggle. We successfully resisted FBI repression. Most importantly, we have built a sizable communist organization and are expanding our capacity in a big way. We are serious about ending the existing order of things. Capitalism is a failed system. We need socialism.”

Register to get the zoom link here.

#MinneapolisMN #FRSO #PeoplesStruggles #RevolutionaryTheory #FRSOat40 #feature

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over fascist Germany, Fight Back News Service is circulating the following speech by Joseph Stalin. The speech was delivered on May 9, 1945.

COMRADES! Men and women compatriots!

The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, forced to her knees by the Red Army and the troops of our Allies, has acknowledged herself defeated and declared unconditional surrender.

On May 7 the preliminary protocol on surrender was signed in the city of Rheims. On May 8 representatives of the German High Command, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied troops and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Troops, signed in Berlin the final act of surrender, the execution of which began at 24.00 hours on May 8.

Being aware of the wolfish habits of the German ringleaders, who regard treaties and agreements as empty scraps of paper, we have no reason to trust their words. However, this morning, in pursuance of the act of surrender, the German troops began to lay down their arms and surrender to our troops en masse. This is no longer an empty scrap of paper. This is actual surrender of Germany’s armed forces. True, one group of German troops in the area of Czechoslovakia is still evading surrender. But I trust that the Red Army will be able to bring it to its senses.

Now we can state with full justification that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany, the day of the great victory of our people over German imperialism has come.

The great sacrifices we made in the name of the freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable privations and sufferings experienced by our people in the course of the war, the intense work in the rear and at the front, placed on the altar of the Motherland, have not been in vain, and have been crowned by complete victory over the enemy. The age-long struggle of the Slav peoples for their existence and their independence has ended in victory over the German invaders and German tyranny.

Henceforth the great banner of the freedom of the peoples and peace among peoples will fly over Europe.

Three years ago Hitler declared for all to hear that his aims included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the wresting from it of the Caucasus, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic lands and other areas. He declared bluntly: “We will destroy Russia so that she will never be able to rise again.” This was three years ago. However, Hitler’s crazy ideas were not fated to come true—the progress of the war scattered them to the winds. In actual fact the direct opposite of the Hitlerites’ ravings has taken place. Germany is utterly defeated. The German troops are surrendering. The Soviet Union is celebrating Victory, although it does not intend either to dismember or to destroy Germany.

Comrades! The Great Patriotic War has ended in our complete victory. The period of war in Europe is over. The period of peaceful development has begun.

I congratulate you upon victory, my dear men and women compatriots!

Glory to our heroic Red Army, which upheld the independence of our Motherland and won victory over the enemy!

Glory to our great people, the people victorious!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle against the enemy and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!

#RevolutionaryTheory #Stalin #USSR #Fascism #WWII

To mark the May 5, 1818 birthday of Karl Marx, Fight Back News Service is circulating a work he wrote in 1864, a statement of congratulations to President Lincoln upon his reelection.

Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America

Sir:

We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.

From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?

When an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveholders dared to inscribe, for the first time in the annals of the world, “slavery” on the banner of Armed Revolt, when on the very spots where hardly a century ago the idea of one great Democratic Republic had first sprung up, whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century; when on those very spots counterrevolution, with systematic thoroughness, gloried in rescinding “the ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old constitution”, and maintained slavery to be “a beneficent institution”, indeed, the old solution of the great problem of “the relation of capital to labor”, and cynically proclaimed property in man “the cornerstone of the new edifice” — then the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Everywhere they bore therefore patiently the hardships imposed upon them by the cotton crisis, opposed enthusiastically the proslavery intervention of their betters — and, from most parts of Europe, contributed their quota of blood to the good cause.

While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

#RevolutionaryTheory #KarlMarx #Birthday

50 years ago, on April 30, the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon were broken by a tank—a tank driven by a fighter for a unified and independent Vietnam. The flag of the U.S.-backed puppet regime came down, and the flag of the National Liberation Front replaced it.

Saigon, the capital of French colonialism, and then American imperialism, was no more. Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City—named for the communist leader who stood at the forefront of Vietnam’s fight for national liberation.

On July 17, 1966, Ho Chi Minh stated, “The war may last five years, ten years, 20 years, or even longer. Ha Noi, Hai Phong, and some cities and factories may be devastated. But the Vietnamese people will never be afraid! Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom. When victory comes, our people will rebuild our country, stronger and more beautiful than ever before.”

So, it came to be, after long decades of heroic struggle, the many had defeated the few. A small country defeated a big one, and Vietnam at last was liberated. A few weeks earlier, on April 18, the Cambodian puppet regime of Lon Nol was sent packing; in the capital city of Phnom Penh, streets were named after the students killed at an anti-war protest at Kent State. Laos would get free as well and embark on the socialist road.

A crucial factor in these victories was forward-looking leaders who made use of the science of Marxism-Leninism. When talking about how he became a communist, Ho Chi Minh said, “There is a legend, in our country as well as in China, on the miraculous ‘Book of the Wise.’ When facing great difficulties, one opens it and finds a way out. Leninism is not only a miraculous ‘book of the wise,’ a compass for us Vietnamese revolutionaries and people: it is also the radiant sun illuminating our path to final victory, to socialism and communism.”

The struggle to liberate Vietnam was a titanic battle that shook the world. Both the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics proved important aid that helped make the victory possible.

Here in the United States, the movement against the war on Vietnam would have a profound impact. It brought many millions into the streets. By the war’s end, the anti-war movement was a movement in solidarity with Vietnam, and the predominant flag at U.S. demonstrations was the flag of the National Liberation Front. The struggle in Vietnam also contributed to the emergence of a new communist movement in the country, which in turn would lead to the founding of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

The victory in Vietnam proves that those who have a just cause and history on their side will win. Since the early 1970s, U.S. imperialism has been a state of decline, and that decline is picking up speed today.

We continue to draw inspiration from past victories and are certain that there will be many more—from Palestine to the Philippines—and yes, right here in the U.S. To quote the outstanding revolutionary Mao Zedong, “While the road ahead is tortuous, the future is bright.”

#FRSO #Statement #RevolutionaryTheory #International #Vietnam #MarxismLeninism #HoChiMinh #AntiWarMovement