Our Declaration to Our Generation

Our Declaration to Our Generation

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Where We're At

This is a point in history where the world is dominated by a system of brutal capitalist exploitation. Nothing in this world is safe from it or the U.S. empire - it's main enforcer. Things as fundamental as human dignity and the very planet that we live on are subservient to the interests of the capitalist class and the endless pursuit of profits. And after centuries of attempts at reforms, only changes in the form of oppression have come, while the system's fundamental workings remain intact and even more destructive.

Everywhere people look, there is the workings of this system.

Every day, more Black people are murdered in the streets or thrown into prisons by this racist system's enforcers, the police. Much like the violent oppression that Black people face from the system, the U.S. carries out imperialist war after war to more deeply subjugate the world's oppressed majority.

All over the planet, in places the U.S. declares "democracies," children from a very young age are working endless days making bricks for American companies. Globalized capital forces immigrants from their home countries to work in brutal conditions of exploitation.
child_textile_worker_india
a child textile worker in India

In the U.S., women's rights over their own bodies are constantly under attack, while women in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan are facing legalized marital rape. In Colombia, workers face U.S.-funded death squads simply for demanding better conditions, while immigrant women in the U.S. are taken from their homes and deported while their children are taken from them. Those of us who stand up in the face of all of this, and resist this empire, come under attack ourselves.

All these things compose only a glimpse at the oppression that is U.S. imperialism. There is a great deal of work ahead to more deeply understand the particularity of the oppression people are up against.

A century of inspiring revolutionary struggle for another world, a century of daring and heroism, boldness and sacrifice has challenged this oppression.

In the 20th century, revolutionary struggle raged, including the heroic first attempts at a socialist transition to a new classless society. In this country, this period gave rise to many radical movements, as well as new revolutionary organizations. Sadly, for many reasons that need to be more deeply understood, none of the forces in this country that came out of that upsurge were ever able to lead a revolution, but instead most have plunged into many different dead-end roads. Many of our comrades have settled for less than revolution, whether in the form of accepting reforms or of isolation and orthodoxy. We can't keep doing the same old work we've been doing if we're serious about this.

Things don't have to be this way, and another world is possible. Revolutionary struggle is surging in India and Nepal. Let's learn from them! The world needs a revolution, a communist revolution where people in their millions - with a backbone force among the oppressed - rise up, overthrow their oppressors, and create the foundations for a new world free from all forms of exploitation. Working together, the people can resist the system's outrages, make a revolution, and bring about a whole new world!

nepal_children_small
children in Nepal

The outrages and uprisings of the current period have given rise to many new radicals and revolutionaries from a new generation, and that is something that has to go much further.

Our generation finds itself dropped into an unfamiliar terrain plagued with paths and sects that can't possibly lead to liberation. However, while it is true the kind of revolutionary organization necessary does not currently exist, this is no reason to give up or settle for the choices currently presented. In fact, this means revolutionaries need to take up the sorely neglected task of actually finding the way forward to revolution in the heart of this empire, forging the kind of revolutionary organization needed to achieve that, and settling for nothing less! These challenges call for revolution, and nothing could be more worthwhile.


Our Collective

In the context of these great challenges, our collective is forming here in Houston to contribute to this overall task together with many others. Though we don't have all the answers, we're determined to contribute as best we can. We take our inspirations from three core ideas.

Fight Imperialism. We want to smash this set-up, and fight this imperialist system... and that is going to take a process. This process is going to require both the development of revolutionary theory that can really win, and the formation of a strong radical movement to challenge the master in his own house. And we believe these developments build toward the foundation of serious revolutionary organization to defeat the system and its enforcers. When we talk about a revolutionary organization, we mean an organization deeply rooted among the people, concentrating their most advanced sentiments and thinking, and bringing new radical thinking. Without being both deeply rooted and also deeply revolutionary, that organization would stop short of an overturn of this set up.
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Rethink. Forging the kind of organization we need to win will take a process of many revolutionaries and organizations engaging in theoretical conception and re-conception with our brothers and sisters in society. Both our collective and revolutionaries generally need to be developing an understanding of all of the forms of oppression that come from this society, why revolution is needed, and ultimately how revolutionaries can actually win. Essential to this process is engaging in resistance struggles to expose the truth about this system and the possibility for revolution to a new generation. At the same time, it is crucial to aid and defend revolutionary struggles against this system throughout the world as a part of the global revolution. Together we will have to sum up our generation's experience so far and the experience of the movements that came before us, figure out how we're going to get out of this awful oppressive framework, and fight like hell for what we do know at any given time.

Experiment. We're going to have to step outside the work we've done so far. We'll need new forms of ideas, struggle, and organization. We believe there needs to be serious revolutionary organization, but instead of shouting it at people from rooftops in a condescending way until they see it, we want to open up a conversation among our generation and all of society around the need for revolution and how we're going to make it, discovering our way forward together. Our collective doesn't claim to have all of the answers, or a pre-determined understanding that will get us to another world. We will have to be constantly discovering and re-discovering that together. Revolutions don't happen by revolutionaries handing down verdicts and everyone else just following in a straight line, but rather it is a back and forth dynamic process that is both collective and vigorous.


Braving the Storm

There is a great revolutionary process of revolutionary refoundation going on nationally and internationally for us all to join into, let's join into it and fight for a world free from oppression.

Those who want to take on the challenge of revolution need to deeply begin studying and summing up the struggles that came before us, to launch many new kinds of struggle, to form many new groups and collectives - with all of this aimed at contributing to our ultimate goal of a liberated future.

For so long, so many of us have not stepped out because we believed that nothing else was possible. Let's go up against all of that together, and show people these are not the choices, revolution is possible! Together, our generation can build an active, radical, and unapologetically revolutionary movement. It's possible to rebel against the system, and show everyone that things don't have to be this way! In theory and in practice, let's work toward the kind of serious revolutionary organization to bring the kind of world we're dreaming of into being. There is much to do.
nepali_rebellion
revolutionaries in Nepal

Theoretically and organizationally, we are still very young, and we shouldn't have illusions about that. In all of our work, our aim is to lay the basis for a new revolutionary movement in this part of the world. A movement to unleash a wave of communist revolution unlike anything seen in this part of the world. We want to ignite the sparks to start a second prairie fire, building from the experience of previous radical movements. It is true that "we are the ones we have been waiting for." Let's set out on this journey!

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI

21/09/09
PRESS STATEMENT
PRODUCE MR. KOBAD GANDHI, SENIOR MAOIST LEADER IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE COURT!
ALL DEMOCRATIC FORCES SHOULD RAISE THEIR VOICE FOR HIS RIGHT TO A LAWYER AND PROTECTION FROM ALL FORMS OF TORTURE!

The committee for the Release of Political Prisoners views with concern the arrest and continuing illegal detention of Mr. Kobad Gandhi senior Maoist leader as is being reported by the press. He has been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police as per the press reports. The press has quoted the police as saying that he is member of the Polit Bureau of the CPI (Maoist). They have also revealed that Mr. Kobad Gandhi heads the publication division of the CPI (Maoist) and also it’s Sub-Committee on Mass Organizations.

The CRPP strongly demands that Mr. Kobad Gandhi be immediately produced before the court as we fear for the safety of his life. We also demand that he should be given the lawyer of his choice as per the law of this land. We at the CRPP call upon all democratic forces, civil rights groups and people’s organizations to raise their voice to defend the rights of Mr. Kobad Gandhi against all forms of torture and threat to his life.

In Solidarity,


Gurusharan Singh Amit Bhattacharyya SAR Geelani
President Secretary General Vice President



Rona Wilson
Secretary Public Relations

Debate on Nepal

Debate on Nepal: (new) Italian Communist Party
Posted by: "nepali_pla"
Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:06 am (PDT)



Relations about PPW in Nepal and Italy according to the (new) Italian
Communist Party

In the last issue of " La Voce ", the review of the (new)
Italian Communist Party, we read this article and translated it in
English, and now we release it, thinking it is interesting for the
debate within the International Communist Movement.

In solidarity,

CARC Party – International Department

Revolutionary people's war in Nepal and in Italy

Even the longest march is done by single steps

In Nepal , the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and democratic revolution,
directed by Unified Communist Party of Nepal (maoist), is going on.
Strengthened by the successes got in the ten years (1996-2006) of war in
the countryside, after the agreement drew up in 2006 with the "Seven
Parties" of the old system for striking out the divine right
monarchy and having up a Constituent Assembly, the UCPN(m) has firmly
taken on hand the leadership of the popular masses in the cities too.
The strife is between the democratic movement of the countryside and
that of the cities on the one hand and on the other hand the residual
feudal forces, the comprador bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic
bourgeoisie. What is at stake is the foundation of a new democracy
system.

The reaction persistently opposes, but it is not succeeded to prevail
over, despite it still has great forces into the old Armed Forces
(Royal, renamed National), the Public Administration, the Magistracy
and, most of all, it is supported and pushed by the Indian ruling
classes and the USA imperialist groups. The UCPN(m) has the People's
Army and the Militia and it has been able to move successfully the
revolutionary forces and to continue the Revolution ary People's War
within the new conditions. Thus it has confirmed that:

1. a Communist Party is able to lead the revolution even in a small and
surrounded country (25 millions of people and 140 thousand Km² also
within actual world context),

2. the Maoism is the guiding theory of the second wave of proletarian
revolution.

The line "firmness of strategy and flexibility in tactics"
pursued by the UCPN(m) has aroused the indignation of the Communist
Movement's dogmatics, particularly of the RCP-USA and of its
chairman Bob Avakian, that do not understand the nature of the
Protracted Revolution ary People's War. In fact, the UCPN(m) gives
great teachings to us Maoist communists who lead the PPW for making
Italy a new socialist country. Let's see some of this teachings.

Within the imperialist countries, the revolutionary people's war is
"the revolution organized and established by the Party, with one
campaign after another, combining battles with tactic operations".
The revolutionary people's war is the Party building the New Power.
This is a structure which guides working class and popular masses'
movement. So it joins leading organisms with organized masses which
recognize and anyway follow its directives in their behavior in front of
the bourgeoisie, the clergy and the other ruling classes.

The bourgeoisie takes the initiative in the claiming struggles not yet
led by Party and then not yet inserted in the revolutionary people's
war as its own parts: here the bourgeoisie leads the dance. The masses,
on the basis of their mentality, the existent relations and their means
(spontaneity is this) respond to bourgeoisie' s actions, because of
necessity, need, because costs increase and wages decrease, because the
bourgeoisie makes more difficult popular masses' life and increase
pressure on the masses. Popular masses' action is a reaction to
bourgeoisie' s actions, a answer that needs only a bourgeois
conception and mentality: a conception of a seller who sells dearly his
workforce. That is why we tell that economism is a backward, still
primitive form, of class struggle. It does not require that the
communist conception of the world is at the helm, it does not require
the lead of the Communist Party. The spontaneous action of the popular
masses is their action carried out on the basis of their world
conception, of their vision of the things, of their feelings, opinion,
mentality (see Gramsci, Introduction to philosophy in Prison Notebooks).

Until the masses restricted themselves to the claiming struggles, in
fact they still are dragged along by the bourgeoisie, no matter how
great are violence and heroism of the revolt. The bourgeoises have
strategies (of course, into the limits of their class condition,
strategies that do not go beyond the horizons of capitalist social
relations,: this is a weak point they can not eliminate). The masses and
their leadership have no strategy. Marchionne [the FIAT manager, Note of
Translator] has a plan and he is trying to carry out it. Epifani [the
leader of CGIL, the most important trade union of the regime, Note of
the Translator] has not a plan. Least of all Angeletti and Bonanni [the
leaders of the two other trade unions of the regime] have it. And these
are the conceited adventurers still now leading the popular masses
insofar as there is a one direction of the moving of popular masses'
individuals and organisms. Neither the alternative trade unions have a
plan. They have claims. They want everything more sincerely, with more
determination and with a little more consistency, less available to come
to compromises with the bourgeoisie and less resigned to its
"omnipotence" than the trade unions of the regime. The best part
of them already feels the limit (about it see, for example, the Thesis
of Slai Cobas' VI Congress, Milan on April 16-18, 2009; the report
of Contropiano on CUB's (Base Delegations) congress in Riccione
(May 23-24, 2009), the Platform by which Slai Cobas has convened the
meeting on June 16, 2009 in Milan). The alternative trade unions shout
aims more advanced (no dismissal, no closing of firms), while Epifani,
Bonanni, Angeletti and some accomplices are content with no closing of
firms, dismissals as less as possible, more social security cushions
possible, gradualness and fair division of sacrifices, etc. Today
Epifani, Bonanni, Angeletti and their accomplices are shouting this, in
order to get the closing of less business possible and for getting
"what will be possible to get".

The popular masses takes the initiative on hand within the class
struggle only when their activism is part of a revolutionary plan of
action, i. e., aimed to establish a new system of social relations: the
Socialism in order to go towards Communism. That is to say, when their
movement is directed by the Communist Party (actually, even if not yet
formally).

On the contrary, in the revolution led by the strategy of revolutionary
people's war, the Party has the initiative. It moves the masses. Of
course, it does it, it has to do it, it is able to do it only
considering masses' material, spiritual, sentimental, etc.,
conditions (as anyway it does when it organizes a simple strike, a
simple demonstration, a protest, whenever it takes the initiative).
Certainly it does it, it has to do it, it is able to do it only thanks
to a network of organisms and relations (the Communist movement) it has
weaved and keeps on weaving, consolidating and strengthening. The Party
and the New Power use one campaign for making the opportune conditions
for the following one, which pursues higher aims. This is the contrary
of the modus operandi of the bourgeois adventurers and careerists as
Cofferati, Bertinotti [former unionist leaders become politicians in the
highest bourgeois institutions, Note of Translator] and Epifani. For
them every campaign comes to an end with the agreement they conclude
with the counter-part. Under their leadership everything is quite normal
with the end of the campaign; the forces break up and the struggle is
out.

On the contrary, the Party and the New Power give continuity to the
class struggle. Every campaign makes the conditions for the following,
even if between the two campaign there can be a break for consolidating
forces.

The Party and the New Power with the operations they promote, bring the
class struggle to climax, to a high level of combativity, protest and
strife which makes impossible bourgeoisie' s life. So, in order to
keep its power, its privileges, its "civilization" the
bourgeoisie will do inconsiderate and desperate moves which climax is
unleashing the civil war. So we pass to the second stage of the
protracted revolutionary people's war.

Since what is important and decisive is the aim, we, who follow the
strategy of the PPW, can and must do things the others who have not our
strategy do not do, and if they do them, they are yielding to the
bourgeoisie or backwardnesses. In James' seasons, Rigoni Stern [an
Italian writer, Note of the Translator] tells that in his village once
the peasantry and the rest of the popular masses severely embarrassed
the fascists. The fascist authority had forbidden the covering of the
cows by the bulls of tarina race, which usually were used in the region.
There were violations about disposition, repression, demonstrations,
arrests. Finally peasantry and women demonstrated en masse against the
law and the repression shouting "Long live Mussolini and the bulls
of tarina race!". How could carabineers repress a demonstration
against the fascist law made praising Mussolini? There were frenetic
consultations, until from Rome the order arrived to forget, to release
the arrestees, and to suspend the law enforcement about improvement of
the bovine race. Rigoni Stern tells a fact: what was the effect of that
event on local popular masses' evolution of politic consciousness
and organization? The results were determined by those who, in that
area, had a more advanced understanding of the conditions, the forms and
the results of the class struggle and on that basis carried it out.
According to the way of thinking of Bob Avakian (the chairman of the
RCP-USA) there is not doubt: it was a semi-fascist demonstration, a
contradiction within Fascism. For those who worked in the ambit of a
tactic plan within the revolutionary people's war against the
regime, for mobilizing, organizing and orientating the local popular
masses it had been an excellent tactic initiative for extending a crack
and strengthening their role: it was to put a foundation for the
following step.

The criticism that Avakian, RCP-USA and other dogmatic people (who
declare themselves Maoists as well) are doing to the UCPN(m) (see the
Five Letters and similar positions), falls within this context. Avakian
does not understand what UCPN(m) is making, because he does not
understand the essence of the Protracted Revolution ary People's
War. Ever step of the UCPN(m) has some limits: then according to Avakian
it is a defaillance. For those who carry out the PPW, every step is a
starting point for the following, or an element which takes the
significance from the context to which is tied in its work plan. Every
time somebody go up a step, Avakian shouts he is giving up the struggle.
Is it possible that UCPN(m) will come to a halt at a point and then all
that which it has made will begin to putrefy and collapse, given that in
a struggle it is impossible to come to a halt whenever one like? Can the
way pursued by UCPN(m) lead in fact the Nepal i revolution into a blind
alley? Both things can happen. Such things already happened in other
cases. But only who adopts the strategy of the PPW and is able to make a
concrete analysis of the concrete situations, can avoid all that,
contributing so that the UCPN(m) elaborates the just line and enforces
it by the two lines struggle.

Let's return to our situation and to what we have to do. It is
important that we promote a process, that we make the popular masses
carry it out, starting from those who already are moving themselves and
that we already are able to move and to orientate, a process of
campaigns, struggles and operations, such as to make the bourgeoisie no
more able to bear the way we forced it in, the way it undertook for
facing the process of campaigns, struggles and operations carried out by
popular masses through our work. It will be a process able to suffocate
the bourgeoisie itself in the trap where we will have forced it to fall.
Then, the bourgeoisie will rouse the civil war, if it will insist to
preserve at any cost its system of social relations, to remain to the
power and to perpetuate its privileges, as exploiting classes usually
do. As regards us, it is important that we drive the bourgeoisie toward
this stage of the socialist revolution in the opportune conditions for
us, having the initiative on our hand, even if will be the imperialist
bourgeoisie to rouse the civil war and we will lead those who will face
its sudden attack, its precipitate, desperate and criminal move (we have
not to deceive us about a possible pacific passage, however working
according to our directions we will be prepared to seize it if it will
occur due to unexpectedly and unsuspected causes). We shall choose the
right time and the right ground of imperialist bourgeoisie' s move in
order to determine the widest ranking of troops and classes possible in
our favour and the greatest isolation possible of civil war's
initiators.

An example for understanding about what could happen are the events in
Nepal in the last weeks. On April 20, 2009, Prachanda government, after
the umpteenth infraction by general, has dismissed the gen. Katawal and
has appointed the gen. Khadka in its place as chief of the National
Armed (former Royal) Forces. Prachanda government had strong cases for
dismissing Katawal because of his insubordination since months. In
substance, Bob Avakian (RCP-USA) indicated Prachanda as traitor of the
revolution because he did not actions as dismissing Katawal. Prachanda
dismissed Katawal after he thought he got ready the conditions needed
for facing successfully the reactions which the gen. Katawal, the
chairman Yadav and the most reactionary forces certainly would have
made in order to not lose their main bastion, the National Armed Forces.
Has the UCPN(m) well sized up the conditions made and reactionary
forces' effects? We certainly are not able to tell it. But this is
the way pursued from UCPN(m) and on this basis it has to be sized. Those
who understand what PPW means, size the events in this way. So far the
UCPN(m) has proved to think hard its own steps and to predispose good
traps for the reaction, to lead well the play which the revolutionary
process involves, to be able to make the reactionary forces believe to
be able to prepare traps for the maoists and the revolutionary movement
so that they fall into those traps themselves. There is no reason for
thinking a priori that the UCPN(m) this time has not succeeded about it.
This is the thought of the individuals widely corrupt by rooted
diffidence in the possibility of the success of revolution (they have
neither revolutionary spirit nor courage). The direct and immediate aim
which UCPN(m) is carrying out in the ongoing strife, i. e., the
supremacy of civil on military power's, can be hardly refused by
parties which do not to openly take the responsibility of restarting
civil war and of a coup d'état which results will be uncertain
thanks to what happened before.

The examples more fitting for explaining what we will become, when at
least a part of us will have adopted a such tactic principle which is
part of the New Method of Work, are both that of the stonemason who is
able to find out the vein of the stones he must work and goes toward
his aim, utilizing stone's vein (this means to consider the
circumstances and the conditions), and the pupil who "plays
along" school children and "instigates" them against an
incapable and hateful teacher until making him unable to carry out his
own didactics activity (this means to work with continuity, one campaign
after another, making of every struggle a school of communism and
putting the results of every struggle as starting basis for the
following which has higher aims, by stages and levels).

Many years ago, in the early `70s, I followed closely the class
struggle within a big metal factory. A working group, even if narrow,
was able to mobilizing effectively its colleagues against the bosses, to
prevent and to face their moves and manoeuvres so that bosses' life
was impossible. The factory changed leadership many times (at that time
the idea to close the factory would have kicked up a complete row), as
long as, in a context different from which the working group was fed by
(and that it fed) a even sharper leadership, was able to make the
working group do mistakes, driving it to isolation and break up. Apart
from such end, which belongs to another story, our just work would
become so and will become so when we shall have assimilated dialectical
materialism at higher level and we shall master it with some skill as
method for knowing and transforming the reality. We will utilize a
higher world conception, we will lead the asymmetric war, on the ground
more favorable to us, upon which the bourgeoisie can not act (as the
French or American imperialists fruitlessly tried to learn and to apply
Mao's military theory for leading the counter-revolutiona ry war).

Instead, until we compare ourselves with the bourgeoisie, the
revisionists, the Subjective Forces of Socialist Revolution on the
ground of the quantity, following again the mobilizations which in the
past were effective but today tire out the workers, we are people who
face their own opponents on a ground more favorable to them, where they
are stronger, where they have got more experience.

For better understanding this thinking we may develop it as regards the
field of the public opinion. In the regime of preventive
counter-revolution, the bourgeoisie developed refined systems and
procedures (the nr. 1 pillar of the regime, see Manifesto Program
website www.nuovopci. it) for influencing, deviating and poisoning the
public opinion. The revolutionaries often do not know how making the
media (TV, newspapers, radio, film, theatre, concerts, etc.) talk about
the experiences, the events and the operations regarding the class
struggle in order to form a public opinion concentrated on this field
and how making the media favorably present masses' claims and the
struggles the masses carry out for achieving them.

The Red Brigades (BR) and other Fighting Communist Organizations (OCC),
when they degenerated in the militarism that drove them to defeat, came
to theorize the attempts as means for propagandize themselves. The
bourgeoises resorted to blackout as counter-revolutiona ry move. It was
forbidden to talk about attempts. At a certain level of the stirfe, the
bourgeois strategists of the struggle against the BR got the consent of
media's owners who made silence around OCC's activities.

How can we face the task to create a public opinion enlightened and
favorable to us?

Certainly neither founding ourselves mainly on the bourgeois media, nor
mainly on our media, which are incomparably weaker than the bourgeois
ones.

Our (still weak) media have to create the public opinion of our
entourages, the entourages they are able to reach. Today we yet are well
away from being able to give, by our propaganda, a clear and practical
consciousness of the reality to those who are listening to us. You just
need to see how even our comrades are in trouble when they are facing a
new problem or event upon when there is not yet a Party Statement about
it.

We have to be able to give to the people we reach by our newspapers,
statements, discourses, fliers and other means of propaganda, the
sufficient intellectual instruments for talking well and the sufficient,
moral and intellectual instruments for acting well. (This is the task of
the agitation and propaganda sector). From here on, their words and
actions will form the public opinion on a wider range. Lenin told the
masses learn mainly by their direct experience. We must lead them to
make that direct experience which helps them to better understand the
class struggle and to make their direct experience go with the word, the
writings, the propaganda, which interprets and does the balance of their
direct experience itself.

Obviously, this main course of our action for making a public opinion
favorable to us, does not exclude the use of auxiliary, secondary
instruments as: to make pirate programs entering the great diffusion
media, to profit by electoral campaign, to make operations as we did
with the web site "cop hunting" [where the nPCI put the photos
of the cops of the political police, so that everybody could be able to
recognize them, Note of the Translator], etc. It is important we take
ourselves the initiative of these operations and that we rightly size up
their effect, range and time, considering the counter-moves of our
enemies.

The UCPN(m) is giving important teachings to all the Communists. The
world conception leading it is the more important strength factor for
the revolution. We Italian Maoist have to learn from its actions,
obviously considering that we are working in a imperialist country, in
particular in the Papal Republic . The common base of the
Marxism-Leninism- Maoism helps us to learn from their experience.

Rosa L.

CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM, IMPACT ON THE PHILIPPINES AND CHALLENGE TO THE FILIPINO STUDENT YOUTH (Message to the League of Filipino Students)

(Message to the League of Filipino Students)

By Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International League of Peoples' Struggle
Founding Chairman, Kabataang Makabayan
September 11, 2009

It is always an honor and privilege for me to convey warmest greetings
of solidarity to the national officers, general membership and all
chapters of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) on the occasion of its
founding anniversary today.

As requested, I am glad to update you briefly on the crisis of
imperialism in the economic, political, military and cultural fields,
assess the impact of such crisis on the semicolonial and semifeudal
ruling system in the Philippines and challenge the LFS and entire
student youth to continue advancing the struggle for national democracy.

Crisis of Imperialism

The current crisis of imperialism is as grave as the Great Depression of
the 1930s and is on the way to becoming worse in its scope, depth and
duration. It is the result of an ever worsening crisis of overproduction
and the constant drive of the monopoly bourgeoisie to extract
superprofits and overaccumulate capital.

The economic and financial crisis is certain to deepen and worsen as the
imperialist powers are driven to further exploit the working people and
plunder the underdeveloped countries. Even as they continue to spout the
slogan of ?free market? globalization, the imperialist powers
increasingly become protectionist and scramble for sources of cheap raw
materials, captive markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence.

Political crisis and disorder are spreading and intensifying on a global
scale. The imperialist powers headed by the US use the slogan of
anti-terrorism in generating wars of aggression, state terrorism,
fascism, chauvinism, racism, religious bigotry and other forms of
barbarism. But the working class and the broad masses of the people are
waging various forms of resistance against imperialism and reaction and
for national liberation, democracy and socialism.

The US is the epicenter of the crisis of the world capitalist system and
is overextended due to its plundering and aggressive character. It is in
the process of losing its position as No. 1 imperialist power even as it
remains the No. 1 enemy of the people of the world. The increase in the
number of major capitalist powers due to the revisionist betrayal of
socialism has led to what is termed as multipolarity, a euphemism for
the intensifying inter-imperialist struggle for a redivision of the world.

The rise of new technology ought to improve socio-economic conditions,
expand the range of freedom and promote the cultural achievements of the
people. But in the imperialist system, the new technology has led to
increasingly severe crises of overproduction, to the further stifling of
freedom for the working people, to the cultural degradation and mass
deception, to unprecedented destructiveness of imperialist wars and to
the ruination of peoples and the environment.

Impact on the Philippine Ruling System

The semicolonial and semifeudal character of the Philippine ruling
system has been deepened and aggravated by the US-instigated policy of
free market? globalization and by the series of economic and financial
crises of the world capitalist system during the last three decades. The
current crisis of imperialism is further deepening and aggravating the
crisis of the domestic ruling system.

The Philippine economy is pre-industrial, agrarian and semifeudal in
character. Under trade liberalization, it has lost sufficiency in rice
and other types of food for domestic consumption because of dumping by
other countries. It is dependent on the export of raw materials and
re-export of low value-added semi-manufactures. Constant trade and
budgetary deficits have resulted in heavy foreign and domestic
borrowings every year. Under current crisis conditions, the economy
suffers from diminished foreign demand for its exports and re-exports
and from the tight global credit situation.

The Philippines is in a state of economic depression. Mass unemployment
has become far worse than ever before. The low wages of workers are
further being pressed down and so are the incomes of the middle social
strata. Landlords are demanding higher rent from tenants. Prices of
basic commodities are rising and so are the taxes and the service fees
charged by the reactionary state. Social unrest is therefore building up
and bursting out.

The Arroyo regime is hated by the people for its puppetry to imperialist
interests, its unbridled corruption and its gross and systematic
violation of human rights. It is extremely isolated and ripe for
overthrow by the broad united front and the broad masses of the people.
Fearful of losing power and facing demands for justice, it is exerting
all efforts to weaken and suppress the broad legal opposition and the
mass movement.

The struggle for power among the reactionary factions of the ruling
classes of big compradors and landlords is more bitter and violent than
ever before But the anti-Arroyo reactionary factions have for the moment
a preference for the electoral method of choosing which clique is next
in line to serve the imperialists and the local exploiting classes, to
get the lion's share of the spoils of office and suppress the resistance
of the people. At any rate, the basic problems of the people persist and
continues to strain the ability of the ruling system to contain them.

The Arroyo regime has been daydreaming that Oplan Bantay Laya, backed up
by US military intervention under the so-called Visiting Forces
Agreement, can destroy or reduce the revolutionary forces of the people
to inconsequentiality. Instead, the revolutionary forces of the people
have been growing in strength and advancing. The US imperialists and the
Arroyo regime seem to forget that not even the Marcos fascist
dictatorship and the presence of US military bases could destroy the
still limited strength of the armed revolutionary movement.

Challenge to the Filipino Student Youth

Today the Filipino student youth suffer fast deteriorating living and
study conditions. They face bleak prospects with regard to prompt and
proper employment even if they were to finish their courses of study.
They are constrained by conditions which victimize their parents and
themselves, especially if they come from the ranks of the working people
and lower and middle social strata. Within the present ruling system,
education is considered a commodity that is available only to those who
can pay for it.

The private schools are dominant in the market, particularly at the
secondary, vocational, tertiary and graduate levels. The public high
schools and the state colleges and universities are charging ever higher
tuition fees because the reactionary state does not appropriate enough
public funds for education but appropriates the most funds for the
servicing of the public debt, financing graft-ridden supply contracts
and boosting the military, police and intelligence services.

The Filipino student youth are victimized not only by the rising costs
of living and study but also by the content of education or miseducation
to which they are subjected. They are systematically diverted from
consciousness that is patriotic, scientific and people-oriented. Those
who control the educational system, the mass media and other
institutions seek to alienate them from the people's demand for national
independence, democracy, social justice, development and international
solidarity and peace against imperialism and all reaction.

The League of Filipino Students and the entire Filipino student youth
are more than ever challenged to arouse, organize and mobilize
themselves and join the rest of the Filipino people in continuing the
struggle for national liberation and democracy against foreign monopoly
capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. We urge you to
exert all efforts at changing not only the US-directed Arroyo regime but
the entire rotten ruling system.

Our struggle must break the chains of our economic, social, political
and cultural captivity. We must uphold the national sovereignty of the
Filipino people, empower the working people in a new type of democracy,
develop the economy through national industrialization and land reform,
promote a national, scientific and democratic type of culture and
education and contribute to the building of a new and better world, free
from imperialism and all reaction.###

Interview with Comrade Binod

Comrades,

My thanks to you for this interview with Cdel Binod. The questions were not asked in a prescriptive, dogmatic sense but in an intelligent and comradely way, addressed the strategy of the UCPN(M) and elicited a cogent riposte to those armchair, karaoke Maoists who have second guessed the comrades on the ground.

I had the privilige to hear Cde. Prachanda recently in London and he confirmed that the Maobaadi are analysing the concrete conditions in Nepal and not engaged in some emotiional spasm based on 'sacred' texts.He cleary said that the task is not to copy the Russian or Chinese Revolutions to to develop their own strategy.

I have sponsored Cde Kiran and a comrade to come to the UK and, while there was a delay because the recent Central Committee took a month to achieve a synthesis of the contradictions of the two line stuggle (that was unique that in that it treated this debate among comrades in a non-antagonistic manner,) it is now likely that they will arrive withing two months.

Lal Salaam

Peter Tobin

PS Cde Guarev will also be coming I have been informed.

.


To: maoist_revolution@ yahoogroups. com; revolutionary_ diary@yahoogroup s.com
CC: republicanarmy@ yahoogroups. com
From: wprm_britain@ yahoo.co. uk
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:26:37 -0700
Subject: [** MAOIST_REVOLUTION **] Nepal: Interview with Comrade Binod

Note: In the current situation, in which international support for the Nepalese revolution has waned considerably since 2006, members of WPRM (Britain and Ireland) are in Nepal to talk with leaders and masses to try to better understand the contradictions in Nepalese society and how the UCPN(M) is providing leadership in making revolution. We believe constructive criticism should be made on the platform of internationalist support, especially given the ongoing threat from US imperialist and Indian expansionist intervention. Here is the first of various interviews and articles we hope to publish.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ---

WPRM: Can you introduce yourself please?
Com. Binod: My name is Comrade Binod. I am a Central Committee member and secretary of the state council for Mahakali state, which comprises seven districts in the far west of Nepal.

WPRM: Can you tell us about the recent Central Committee meeting and its implications for the coming weeks and months?
Com. Binod: In the life of the party, this Central Committee meeting has been unusual from the point of view of ideology and debate. We have received an opportunity, and we are proud that this meeting has been very unusual because it has taken place amid the deep curiosity of the proletariat in Nepal as well as the world over. This curiosity is positive. At the same time, the imperialists and reactionaries also have an expectation. Amid this we have carried out a great meeting, and made decisions which have made us proud to talk about this meeting.

WPRM: And what are these decisions?
Com. Binod: At this moment when there is no experience of revolution in the 21st century, when there is no advanced proletarian revolutionary movement in the world, when this country is encircled and governed by Indian expansionism, at this moment against imperialism and expansionism, we have come to the decision that we have to accomplish insurrection. This is the important outcome of this meeting.

WPRM: So insurrection can be carried out in this situation?
Com. Binod: Certainly there is a negative situation; an unfavourable situation for revolutionaries. But there is no other mightier force than the people, and the Nepalese people are so mighty. Because of this, these people can bring us success. We have the ideology of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism (MLM) and we have a good and clear organisational setup, we have a team of leaders who want to fight, we have a class, a nation and a region which has been heavily suppressed. We have the commitment to win victory, the commitment to synthesise our understanding to a new height. Certainly there are serious obstacles put in front of the Nepali people by the Americans, but we have commitment, courage and the confidence to overcome those obstacles. What we see now within the UML, a revisionist party, is that their cadres have lost confidence with their leaders and their line. At the same time within Nepali Congress, a reactionary party, many cadres have also lost confidence with their leaders and their line. The monarchists have already lost their leadership and also the Terai nationalist forces have seen their leadership divided.
We have a glorious history. You are British, and we have a glorious history of Ghorkali forces that defeated the British Army in many places. As descendants of that, our people are equipped with the weapons of MLM and the blood that is flowing in Nepal is now working for the purpose of socialism and communism. When we initiated the People’s War we were only 70 or 75 people. Even at that time we had the courage and confidence that we could conquer the world, that the revolutionary forces, the proletariat, could conquer the world. We had some fear about whether our party was going to be destroyed, or whether, like UML, it would become a revisionist party, whether it would vacillate on the revolutionary path. But through the process of great debate we have come to a higher level of understanding and we see that the victory of the proletariat is inevitable. We have a deep feeling that today no-one can make this party a reactionary or vacillating party. We are not only capable and experienced in leading People’s War but also in leading line struggle and taking the party to a higher level of debate. That has been proved in this meeting.

WPRM: How does the UCPN(M) feel about the current UML led coalition government?
Com. Binod: Our senior leader Baburam Bhattarai said that the Nepali people have given the responsibility of being a driver to the Maoists, as a conductor to the Nepali Congress and as a caretaker to the UML. But now the caretaker has taken the place of the driver and the driver is in place of the caretaker. In Nepalese tradition there is a fable about Dakchyaprajapati, who has the body of a human being and the head of a goat, which is set in a wrong direction, pointing backwards. This government is like that. Objectively we understand this government like that, but politically this government is designed by Nepali Congress. In the objective reality of Nepal, this government has been constructed in order to destroy the Nepali revolution, the UCPN(M) and the aspirations of the Nepali people. But this government is like a scarecrow. In the beginning the birds think this might be a man. Then when the bird realises this is not a man then it sits on the head of the scarecrow. At the moment this government is like a scarecrow. The Nepali people understand that it is set up by Indian expansionism and they are not afraid of this. So it is not so important to talk about this government, but as far as MK Nepal (the PM) is concerned, he has time and again over the last few years prepared his trousers and his daura-suruwal (a type of Nepali dress). He has been prepared many times but had never before had this opportunity. Now he has got his opportunity. But this time there is a big possibility that his chair will fall down before his clothes get dirty.

WPRM: Now Prachanda is talking about a new government being formed, how will this come about?
Com. Binod: This new government will assure civilian supremacy and national sovereignty, giving immediate relief to the people and with the purpose of insurrection. We have carried out many preparations in order to convince the international community that it is necessary to have power, in order to convince Nepalese society this government will be formed. Certainly, this government will be formed to organise insurrection, having convinced the international community that we want a new society, and to convince the revolutionary forces that we want to make revolution, to convince the people that we are going towards a new society, to convince anti-imperialist and anti-expansionist forces that we are taking this society forwards.

WPRM: How exactly will this new government come into being?
Com. Binod: The main basis is the Nepalese people. It will come about through the struggle of the Nepalese people, through strong intervention against the parliament and the organisation of a United Front amongst the nationalist and democratic forces within parliament and involving all sections of people and civil society. We understand that one section of UML is not happy with this government. The main section of the leadership is also not happy with this government. The Madhesi party has split and the Madhesi people are also not happy with this government. Even the honest people within Nepali Congress believe that without the Maoists the new constitution cannot be written. The people who are in favour of civilian supremacy and national sovereignty are also not happy with this government. The majority within this parliament agrees on the question that the step of the president (to overrule then-PM Prachanda’s decision to sack General Katuwal) is unconstitutional and unjust. These parliamentary forces are afraid even to debate this issue, this motion on the step of the president. Therefore this government is defunct because the practice has been shown that the parties are split and the parliamentary members are protesting. This kind of government cannot be accepted for a long time. It is defunct and is losing morality, confidence and honesty. It is set up against the people and so cannot sustain itself for long time.

WPRM: The deadline for writing the constitution is in nine months, is it possible to write it in time and what will happen if it is not?
Com. Binod: The constitution would certainly have been written if there was no struggle between opposite classes. But this struggle is happening as a political struggle. The other classes would like to write a constitution according to their class interests, we would like to write a constitution according to our class interests. The possibility of the constitution being written is low. At that time there is the possibility that a new class situation might emerge. We are taking the issue very seriously in order to meet the challenges that might come up in those conditions. In this situation we are trying to organise the masses for rebellion, through insurrection of the masses. The reactionaries didn’t want Constituent Assembly elections, but on the backs of the masses they were obliged to hold them. They didn’t want a republic, but on the back of the people the republic was established. Those elements who once put a bounty on our heads and propagated that we are terrorists have now been forced to recognise us as a political party because of the force of the people, as has the US imperialist force who also called us terrorists.

No such event has before taken place in history, where ‘terrorists’ have been recognised like this. These kind of unimaginable things have happened on the back of the force of the masses. We believe that on the back of the force of the masses, the constitution can also be written, a constitution favourable to the masses, but the possibility of that kind of constitution being written is very low at the moment.

WPRM: Many Maoists around the world are concerned that the party has given up the armed struggle, the PLA are in cantonments and the party now has the plan to merge the two armies together, the PLA and the Nepali Army (NA). What is the role of the PLA now in the struggle for revolution in Nepal?
Com. Binod: The PLA is under the control of UNMIN and a special team, the Army Integration Committee. But practically the PLA is under the control of the Maoist party. Even though the weapons are in containers, the key of those containers is in our hands. We talked to the lower members of the NA and we found that the behaviour within their army is like from the 12th or 14th centuries, feudal behaviour is being carried out. The leadership of the NA is from a very backward class, from feudal leadership. If we do things carefully then there is a big possibility that the bitterness between officers and soldiers could be maximised. Obviously as long as the NA is around, insurrection or victory cannot be achieved. Hence, the question of integration is not that the PLA is being diluted into the NA. The NA should be diluted into the PLA. The meaning of the policy of army integration is not in the dissolution of the PLA but in the dissolution of the NA, to transform the NA and turn it into a PLA. That is why Nepali Congress and UML are always afraid of army integration.

WPRM: Mao said that after 1949 the dangers of sugar-coated bullets are more dangerous than the real bullets from the war before. How does the UCPN(M) understand this?
Com. Binod: Certainly this situation is grave, but it is not out of our hands and the situation can be made positive. Why has the situation developed in the world where millions of people worked to establish a socialist state and then again the same people came to power and later removed that state away. Why is that? Why do the same people who were once deeply respected reach the point of denouncing the state? There are still certain citizens who fought for Marxism who are now really afraid of Marxism. While we were talking to youth from Eastern Europe, youth working for human rights organisations, I talked to them and asked why there is no attraction towards Marxism among the masses of Eastern European countries.

Why do British people, where Marx said the first revolution would take place, still support the rejected parliamentary system? Why was the Chinese revolution demolished very easily after the death of Mao Zedong? We have to answer these crucial questions standing on the unprecedented history of the 21st century. We feel we can meet the many challenges put forward in the present world. We will continue developing our understanding, our theory, having in the present given answer to these questions; these crucial questions. Based on dialectical materialism and based on democratic centralism, based on safeguarding participation in state power and control over state power, we can accomplish and meet the challenges of state power and control. Communists believe that the stability of capitalism is in motion. We believe that those who are most scientific are Marxist-Leninist- Maoists. But to some they look dogmatic and unscientific. Those who are most reactionary are capitalist-imperial ists, which to them looks more dynamic and more forward-moving. The crucial question is why it looks like that. We have to answer this question.

WPRM: The UCPN(M) has developed a theory of elections taking place after New Democratic Revolution and during the stage of socialism. Can you give us your thoughts about this?
Com. Binod: Based on the experiences of Soviet Russia and China, we have understood that the economic and social rights of the masses are not only important, but the political rights of the masses, the personal liberty of the individual, are also very important. With the participation of the masses in state power, state power can go autocratic; state power can become another type. Certainly the dictatorship of the proletariat has to be established and systematised. While we are systematising the dictatorship of the proletariat we should not be cut off from the relationship with the masses. So the dictatorship of the proletariat should be approved directly by the masses.

This does not include pro-feudal, pro-imperialist, pro-expansionist forces, or comprador bureaucrats. It does not include anti-feudal ideologies. Not from those kinds of people, but from people that are really oppressed, those who, if they lose state power, will lose everything. We understand that socialism is an exercise of political ability of the individual to safeguard the dictatorship of the proletariat. That kind of society is, we believe, socialist society. Leninist socialism as defined in the period of Stalin contained something wrong somewhere, so we believe and we hope that we can correct this practice. The control, the observation and the intervention of the masses against the state, has to be guaranteed. In one certain sphere, our correct leadership, our correct party line, cannot mean a direct corridor to revolution. The whole thing has to be tested time and again. Then the instrument of the state is the people, and the people must have the right to test it. That is our definition of socialism as we understand it.