Cops break up May Day march in Montreal
6 arrested as anti-capitalist demonstration turns rowdy By Irwin Block, The Gazette MONTREAL – Police broke up an anti-capitalist May … Continue reading Cops break up May Day march in Montreal
Author: simonsaysmakerevolution
Biplap: The Nepalese Revolution Can Achieve Victory
[From Kasama Project. – Ed] Kasama has produced the following interview, and hopes you will help us circulate it widely. … Continue reading Biplap: The Nepalese Revolution Can Achieve Victory
A New Wave of Unity Among Revolutionary Communists
[From Arsenal-Express newsletter, a publication of the Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada). – Ed.]
It is with great pride and a deep sense of responsibility in front of the Canadian proletariat and the international communist movement that we announce the rallying of the Social Revolution Party (SRP) to the Parti communiste révolutionnaire – Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada).
The Social Revolution Party is an Ottawa-based communist group founded in 2009. Created two years earlier, the Revolutionary Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party that fights for a revolutionary change in Canada, for workers power and socialism, as part of the world revolution.
Following the historic anti-capitalist mobilization against the G20 Summit in June 2010 in Toronto, the Social Revolution Party came into contact with the RCP. During the fall, members of the SRP studied and discussed the program of the RCP. The comrades of the SRP also took part in the Second Canadian Revolutionary Congress organized by the RCP, which was held December 11, 2011 in Toronto. The RCP was then able see the quality of the revolutionary commitment of the SRP and its activists and their willingness to move forward on the path of communism and revolution. Despite being a young organization, members of the SRP already have a rich experience in organizing, especially among the working class.
Continue reading “A New Wave of Unity Among Revolutionary Communists”
Bureaucrat capitalism in Libya and the rentier economy
[While not a radical analysis, this Planet Money podcast makes several insightful points on the nature of bureaucrat capitalism and … Continue reading Bureaucrat capitalism in Libya and the rentier economy
Prof. Jose Maria Sison: The Marxian Critique of the Neoliberal Economic Agenda
[More video and text after the break.]
Continue reading “Prof. Jose Maria Sison: The Marxian Critique of the Neoliberal Economic Agenda”
Street art and revolution: “It’s beautiful. It’s spreading everywhere.”
By Simon of Revolutionary Initiative.
In his Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, Mao said that revolutionaries and specialists in the arts should pay attention to the art produced by the masses, whether it be literature, drama, music, visual art or reporting in village level newspapers. Street art would be no exception.
The importance of street art to the people comes through in the following film about revolutionary graffiti in Egypt. Contrary to the view promoted by the state and the bourgeoisie that street art is vandalism and a threat to public safety, an artist describes how revolutionary murals gives oppressed communities a sense of pride and solidarity.
More revolutionary Egyptian street art can be found on the facebook group Revolution Graffiti.
Street art is also not limited to traditionally painted murals. Street artists around the world are also constantly innovating new practices to communicate with the people. Let’s look at some examples.
Continue reading “Street art and revolution: “It’s beautiful. It’s spreading everywhere.””
Alain Badiou – Tunisia, Egypt: The universal reach of popular uprisings
The wind of the east carries away the wind of the west
Until when the idle and crepuscular West, the “international community” of those who still believe themselves to be the rulers of the world, will continue to give lesson in good management and good behavior to the rest of the world? Is it not laughable to see some well-paid and well-fed intellectuals, retreating soldiers of the capital-parliamentarism that serves us as a moth-eaten Paradise, offering their services to the awe-inspiring Tunisian and Egyptian people, in order teach these savages the ABC of “democracy?”
What pathetic persistence of colonial arrogance! In the situation of political misery that we’ve been living for the last three decades, is not evident to surmise that it is us who have everything to learn from the popular uprisings of the moment?
Don’t we have the urgency to give a close look to everything, that, over there, made possible, by collective action, the overthrow of oligarchic and corrupt governments, who — or maybe especially — stood in a humiliating position of servitude to the Western world?
Yes, we should be the students of these movements, and not their stupid professors. For they give life, with the genius of their own inventions, to those same political principles that for some time now the dominant powers try to convince us of their obsoleteness. And in particular the principle that Marat never stopped recalling: when it is a matter of liberty, equality, emancipation, we all have to join the popular upheavals.
Continue reading “Alain Badiou – Tunisia, Egypt: The universal reach of popular uprisings”
Mao: Problems of War and Strategy
[Final part of our series on revolutionary military strategy in imperialist countries. While it mainly deals with revolutionary war in China, it contains many important insights into revolutionary strategy in general and how it’s application changes for different countries in particular.]
November 6, 1938
I. CHINA’S CHARACTERISTICS AND REVOLUTIONARY WAR
The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries.
But while the principle remains the same, its application by the party of the proletariat finds expression in varying ways according to the varying conditions. Internally, capitalist countries practice bourgeois democracy (not feudalism) when they are not fascist or not at war; in their external relations, they are not oppressed by, but themselves oppress, other nations. Because of these characteristics, it is the task of the party of the proletariat in the capitalist countries to educate the workers and build up strength through a long period of legal struggle, and thus prepare for the final overthrow of capitalism. In these countries, the question is one of a long legal struggle, of utilizing parliament as a platform, of economic and political strikes, of organizing trade unions and educating the workers. There the form of organization is legal and the form of struggle bloodless (non-military). On the issue of war, the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries oppose the imperialist wars waged by their own countries; if such wars occur, the policy of these Parties is to bring about the defeat of the reactionary governments of their own countries. The one war they want to fight is the civil war for which they are preparing.[1] But this insurrection and war should not be launched until the bourgeoisie becomes really helpless, until the majority of the proletariat are determined to rise in arms and fight, and until the rural masses are giving willing help to the proletariat. And when the time comes to launch such an insurrection and war, the first step will be to seize the cities, and then advance into the countryside’ and not the other way about. All this has been done by Communist Parties in capitalist countries, and it has been proved correct by the October Revolution in Russia.
PPW, Italian style…
[An excerpt from the Manifesto Program of the (new) Italian Communist Party. It lays out their strategy, which they call Revolutionary Protracted People’s War. Despite the very similar terminology, it is quite different from the PPW strategy as laid out by RCP Canada. See also the (n)ICP article “The necessity of distinguishing between the universal and particular laws of the protracted popular revolutionary war“.]
3.3. Our strategy: the revolutionary protracted people’s war
Our strategy, the way for making Italy a new socialist country, is the revolutionary protracted people’s war. This is the conclusion of the balance of the experience of the communist movement, of the struggle of the working class against the imperialist bourgeoisie, in particular during the first wave of the proletarian revolution. By its nature the struggle of the working class against the imperialist bourgeoisie for establishing socialism is a revolutionary protracted people’s war. The communist party has to recognize this reality, understand it through the end and utilize this consciousness for directing the revolution. At the conclusion of the balance of the experience of the struggles the communist movement carried out against imperialist bourgeoisie in the last 130 years we have to repeat, paraphrasing what Mao said in 1940 regarding the proletarian revolution in China: “For more than hundred years we used to do the revolution without having a clear and right conception of it. We acted blindly: this is the reason of our defeat”. (127)
RCP (Canada): More on the question of waging revolutionary war in the imperialist countries
[Part of our ongoing series on revolutionary military strategy in imperialist countries. Originally posted here.]
First published in Arsenal magazine, No. 5, May 2005. Arsenal is the voice of the RCP(OC).
“Policy is the starting-point of all the practical actions of a revolutionary party and manifests itself in the process and the end-result of that party’s actions. A revolutionary party is carrying out a policy whenever it takes any action. If it is not carrying out a correct policy, it is carrying out a wrong policy; if it is not carrying out a given policy consciously, it is doing so blindly. What we call experience is the process and the end-result of carrying out a policy. Only through the practice of the people, that is, through experience, can we verify whether a policy is correct or wrong and determine to what extent it is correct or wrong. But people’s practice, especially the practice of a revolutionary party and the revolutionary masses, cannot but be related to one policy or another. Therefore, before any action is taken, we must explain the policy, which we have formulated in the light of the given circumstances, to Party members and to the masses. Otherwise, Party members and the masses will depart from the guidance of our policy, act blindly and carry out a wrong policy.” – Mao Zedong, On the Policy Concerning Industry and Commerce, 1948
We are publishing these working notes that have been produced at the RCP(OC) Politburo’s request, in order to pursue the study of the protracted people’s war as a strategy for the imperialist countries. [1]
