[MC5 comments: Here Revolutionary
Communist Party-USA (RCP-USA)
leader Bob Avakian admits that
Lenin explained how it could be
that "whole" societies could become
parasites under imperialism;
yet, Avakian goes on to talk about
parasites who are allegedly
proletarians. MIM has addressed
this particular article in MT.
Also, he is saying we have to seek
to unite the 90 percent of the U.$.
population to win. This is a
bourgeois democratic type of
assumption. Because Avakian does
point to the truth of Lenin's
theory of imperialism, we say he is
"straddling" two things, most
notably parasites and proletarians.
When someone straddles on this
particular question of parasites
and proletarians, we Leninists
speak of "Kautskyism," the ideology
of a leading socialist who worked
with Engels and who could not quite
oppose imperialist militarism
during World War I. If Avakian had
not mentioned the Leninist theory
in particular on "whole" countries
becoming parasites, we would have
accused him of simple chauvinism.
In actuality, Mao assumed that the
Japanese occupiers had to be
swallowed up bit by bit in
protracted People's War. He never
assumed they would go 90/10 for the
revolution. Nonetheless Mao won
victory. The defeat of an
imperialist power does not require
90/10 support from the imperialist
country's people. No matter
how close we are to imperialism's
final days this will remain true.
If need be, the Third World
proletariat and oppressed peoples
can put U.$. imperialism into
receivership without any
help from the oppressor nation
peoples of imperialism.]
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RW ONLINE: A Problem of Strategic
Orientation for the Revolution
A Problem of Strategic Orientation
for the Revolution
The Two 90/10's
Bob Avakian
Revolutionary Worker #890, January
19, 1997
A particular problem that expresses
itself very sharply, both in
imperialist countries in general
and in a particularly concentrated
way in the U.S., given its position
and role in the world, is the
relation between maintaining our
fundamental internationalist
orientation--and at the same time
maintaining our orientation of
uniting all who can be united
within the U.S. itself.
In "Imperialism, the Highest Stage
of Capitalism" and elsewhere Lenin
talks about how one of the main
features of imperialism is
heightened parasitism and how this
"sets the seal of parasitism" on
the whole of society, in the
homelands of imperialism. In other
words, there is this whole
parasitic character to society. And
this is even more pronounced today-
-especially (although certainly not
exclusively) in the U.S.--than at
the time Lenin was writing and
using England as a particular
example.
So the question -- and the
difficult contradiction--is
maintaining our fundamental
internationalist orientation and as
a part of that exposing and
opposing the heightening parasitism
in U.S. society (and imperialist
society in general), while at the
same time maintaining our strategic
orientation of developing the
broadest possible United Front,
Under the Leadership of the
Proletariat, in the U.S. itself, in
order to be able to carry out the
proletarian revolution in the U.S.
as part of the world proletarian
revolution. Or, to put it another
way: maintaining the strategic
orientation of standing with the 90
percent or more of the masses
versus the 10 percent of the ruling
class and its die-hard social base,
in the world as a whole and within
U.S. society.
Here a question could be raised--
and has been raised: will we
actually get 90% of the people in
the U.S. for the proletarian
revolution? Probably not; almost
certainly not at the start, BUT
(and this is extremely important),
we cannot know for sure, in
advance, where all the different
social strata and forces will line
up when the showdown comes--that
will be determined in the actual
event.
As Lenin said when he was talking
about the bourgeoisification of
sections of the proletariat and the
split in the working class within
the imperialist countries, we need
to go down deeper and lower to the
basic masses. But we have to
combine going lower and deeper with
going broader. Lenin made this
point: nobody can say with
certainty exactly where these
various strata of the working class
will fall out--that will be
determined only in the course of
the actual proletarian revolution.
We cannot say with certainty
exactly what the line-up is going
to be at the beginning or even at
the end of the armed insurrection
and civil war, nor certainly
looking beyond that. But (and this
is extremely important) while it
may be the case that we don't
actually get 90% for the
proletarian revolution--and it's
almost certain that we won't have
that many with us at the start--yet
this has to remain our strategic
orientation, if we are going to
win--not only in the sense of the
seizing of power but looking beyond
that to the historic goal of
communism worldwide.
If we don't maintain the strategic
orientation of seeking to unite
90%--even while it may be true at a
given time that we're far from
having 90% of the people with us--
we will lose.
Now, the need to win 90% and the
orientation of winning 90% is in
fact in contradiction with an
essential feature of how revolution
would take place in a country like
the U.S.--namely, that this
revolution would involve, as a very
significant aspect, a civil war
between two sections of the people.
How do we handle this very real
contradiction? That contradiction
is going to exert a powerful effect
in reality, but through all that we
have to maintain an orientation of
uniting all who can be united, in
the broadest expression of that. We
can't say (picking a number
somewhat arbitrarily), "Well, the
most we can hope for is 55%." That
can't be our orientation. Even if
only 40% of the people are with us
when we start, or only 20% for that
matter, we still can't have an
orientation other then seeking to
win 90% ultimately.
Once a real revolutionary situation
develops, in timing an armed
insurrection--not just in the most
narrow, immediate sense, but in the
larger sense, deciding when it's
time to shift gears into
concentrating on the seize power
aspect of the Central Task*--one of
the main things revolutionaries
have to evaluate is: "Do we have
the potential to not only bring
forward the proletariat in its
masses but to win over these other
strata, if not at the start, then
through the process of what we're
going to initiate?" In the context
of a revolutionary situation, if
the revolutionaries think that,
through the process of what they're
going to initiate, they have a good
chance of winning these other
strata over, then it's time to go;
and if they wait until they already
have them won over--no good.
So this is a very important
distinction: there's a very intense
contradiction between recognizing
that a significant aspect of the
revolutionary struggle, and the
revolutionary war in particular
(armed insurrection and civil war),
would be a civil war between two
sections of the people, on the one
hand, and on the other hand,
maintaining the strategic
orientation of the United Front
Under the Leadership of the
Proletariat and seeking to unite
the 90% against the 10% (to put it
that way). This is an intense
contradiction and will repeatedly
assert itself as a very intense
contradiction.
Another way of saying this is that
these two "90/10s" (uniting 90% in
the U.S. and uniting with 90% of
the people worldwide against the
10% representing the exploiters and
their most hardcore social base)
are not in antagonism in a
fundamental sense, but they are in
contradiction, and this
contradiction can sometimes take
very acute expression. This is the
reality of the role of U.S.
imperialism in the world and the
parasitism in U.S. society. Even
with all the changes that are going
on, which to a significant degree
are undermining the position held
by "the broad middle class" in the
U.S., particularly since WW2, this
90%/90% (or 90/10, 90/10)
contradiction can at times be
extremely acute and complicated.
Proletarian Internationalism vs.
Internet Internationalism
I was listening to a tape of an
interview with Clark Kissinger on a
radio station in northern
California, and in the course of
that he made this analogy/metaphor-
-of the more privileged strata, in
particular in U.S. society, as
being high up on the world food
chain. I broke out laughing because
(this is true) I had actually
myself, in talking with other
people about American society, made
exactly the same analogy or
metaphor. I think it's an
illustration of the fact that this
analogy or metaphor does strongly
suggest itself.
In the whole international process
of accumulation and circulation of
capital, by the time things get to
the more privileged strata, in
particular in the U.S., it's become
highly rarified from the actual
process in which those commodities,
that wealth, is produced in
fundamental terms. And there is a
real aspect of being at the end of
the food chain for significant
strata, and especially for the more
privileged strata, in these
imperialist countries.
Another way to look at this,
drawing from the contemporary form
of things, is that we could pose it
in terms of the contradiction
between "Proletarian
Internationalism" and "Internet
Internationalism." In relation to
this there have been some very
important articles in our newspaper
on the Internet and what it
represents. In those articles there
are some very revealing statistics
cited. For example in the article
"Big Brother on the Internet" (RW
No. 858, May 26, 1996), it points
out that at this time only about 4
million people--out of a global
population of 6 billion!!-
-are hooked into the Internet, and
the majority of people on a world
scale don't even have telephones!--
which is indispensable for being a
part of this whole internet thing.
Now, there are a lot of people
(even some with good intentions)
who actually believe that what's
happening with all this high-tech
stuff, on the Internet, etc., is
that they're transcending national
barriers, even class barriers--that
there's some way in which this is
going to reduce the differences
between people in the world not
only in a physical-geographic sense
but also socially. Some of these
people are somewhat conscious of
the actual conditions of people in
the world. Some others are more
narrowly focused and, perhaps
willfully, oblivious. But to a
significant degree they share these
illusions that they're transcending
material reality, that they're also
transcending social barriers, and
that this is a way the world can be
brought together on a more
egalitarian basis--a basis of
peace, justice and equality,
something like that, in terms of
some of its better expressions.
So, as we have seen, this has its
attendant philosophical
expressions, including various
forms of the present-day version of
"matter has disappeared" (and
different present-day forms of
"god-building"). This is how the
technological changes associated
with the "information revolution"--
and, more essentially, these
people's position within the
overall and international "division
of labor" of imperialism and its
accumulation process--are reflected
in their consciousness. And, again,
we can throw up our hands, or we
can get a good laugh out of it
(which we should), and then
recognize that we have more work to
do.
It's not accidental that these
ideas have currency among sections
of the "new age" middle strata,
even some with progressive and
"globalist" orientations. And we
have to pose proletarian
internationalism vs. Internet
internationalism without losing our
orientation of uniting all who can
be united according to our
strategy. One of the ways this
comes out on a world level, as well
as in particular societies, is that
often the intellectuals are
susceptible to this kind of
thinking. They tend to deal in the
realm of abstract ideas and what
they think of as "pure reason." One
of the forms this takes is this
"Internet internationalism." And
more generally, because a lot of
the real social and world relations
and the conditions of the broad
masses are obscured to them, they
tend to think they can go forward
from their own position to a more
ideal position, without having to
go through material reality.
So it is very important that we be
very firm and have a firm grip on
the fact that the strategy we are
talking about is the United Front
Under the Leadership of the
Proletariat. We must be very
clear about this and we have to
maintain a very firm stand on this-
-without turning this into
something sectarian and self-
serving, but precisely on the basis
of upholding the fundamental
interests and historic mission of
the proletariat.
* Central Task is "Create Public
Opinion, Seize Power." For more on
how the RCP views this Central Task
see "Create Public Opinion...Seize
Power" by Bob Avakian, RW
No. 834 and on the website
http://www.mcs.net/~rwor. Also see
RCP Programme section on
"Create Public Opinion, Seize
Power!"
This article is posted in English
and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker
Online
http://www.mcs.net/~rwor
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