Revolution is a stage in the development of human society when the tools humans use change in such a way that the old social arrangements -- the way necessities are distributed to those who need them -- are no longer adequate, and need to be changed to fit the new condition.

A new class emerges from the changes in production and society, a class that no longer has a place in the old disintegrating system. This class, whose ranks grow as the process develops, must fight for what it needs to survive. To do so, it must understand itself as a class, and understand that its fight to survive and thrive is in reality a fight for a new society, a new economic system, and a transformed world.

Revolutions go through stages. One stage sets the stage for and leads to another, but they also overlap and interact, occur together and inform each other. The first stage - the one that kicks off the revolutionary process - is the introduction of new means of production that changes in a profoundly radical way how things are produced. Today, the introduction of the computer chip - the electronics revolution and automation - is replacing workers and eliminating the need for labor, throwing the entire world into an irreversible crisis. This process is well underway.

This disruption and the social destruction it causes give rise to social revolution. Because the capitalist economic system is based on the exploitation and selling of labor power, the very foundation of capitalism is being destroyed, along with the lives of the workers who are thrown-out of the production process. We see the maturing of this objective stage of the revolutionary process, and the scattered, but widening social response by the growing ranks of the poor and insecure who have no choice but to fight for what they need.

This social destruction is reaching into all sections of society, and polarizing the world and the American people into two camps: those few, the owners of the means of production, who are becoming obscenely rich from the plundering and profiteering on everything, and the mass of people being driven down into poverty, indigence and homelessness. More and more families are slipping into the ranks of the poor, as good jobs are replaced by computers or shipped to starvation-wage parts of the world. The "middle class" is being destroyed, falling down into insecurity and poverty.

This growing mass of the economically insecure, the permanently jobless, and the homeless form a new class. The demands of this new class - for housing, health care, education, and the wherewithal to fulfill themselves materially, culturally, and spiritually, free from misery and exploitation -- are revolutionary demands. This class has been pushed outside capitalist relations, and has no stake in them anymore.

Without consciousness of itself as a class, without understanding its common class interests, this objectively revolutionary class of workers can neither link up their struggles, nor forge a strategy that will allow them to get what they need. The various struggles are fought out in isolation from each other against an enemy that is organized and conscious, and -- whatever their differences among themselves -- understands that it is a class.

The ruling class knows that it must move to contain the brewing social struggle using all the weapons in its arsenal. These include the stripping of rights, mass incarceration (especially of our youth), war, police murder, forced evictions, hunger, and the direct thievery of public resources known as "privatization." They divide the working class with propaganda campaigns using their historical weapons of division: racism and immigrant-bashing. The entering of the Blackwater mercenaries, fresh from Iraq, into post-Katrina New Orleans was an indication of the fascist nature of the ruling class response to the growing class of the impoverished and the vast movement that is yet unorganized and scattered, but whose demands are that of the revolution itself.

In the context of this epochal change in the economic underpinning of society, none of the demands of this new class can be met without a revolution in the way society is organized -- to one that is based on cooperation and distribution according to need. Understanding this as the necessary outcome to the various scattered struggles is key to workers being able to achieve their goals Without this vision of what is being fought for -- beyond the specific demands of the moment -- the fighters on the various fronts of struggle can only fight for what they have known in the past. With a cause and a vision, workers understand their scattered struggles are part of a larger social movement for a new society. But understanding and vision do not arise spontaneously; new ideas must be introduced.

The role of the conscious revolutionaries is to teach the science of society and revolution in ways that relate to the specific struggles and the way people experience them, to raise this understanding of the common goals, and articulate the vision of and teach about the nature of a communist economic system and society - the only one compatible with humanity's evolution, and the only one equal to its best dreams.

The last stage of the revolutionary process is political. This means that the class understands itself as a class, aligns itself along common interests with a common vision, and organizes itself politically on that basis, with the goal of political power and the transformation of society in its interests. This stage ends with a seizure of political power and the remaking of society in the interests of the revolutionary class and humanity itself.

This is the stage that people usually think of when they use the word revoluton, which is defined in the dictionary as "overthrow of a government, form of government, or social system by those governed, and usually by forceful means, with another government or system taking its place." When this stage is achieved, the work of the reconstruction of society begins.

The revolution that is underway today - objectively maturing, but subjectively still unconscious and scattered - is of an epochal nature. With its victory, we will have the peace, equality, and abundance that humanity has dreamed of and struggled for throughout history. This is the vision that the conscious revolutionary brings to the social revolution, and the mission of a revolutionary organization is to organize for this stage of the revolution's development.

 

October.2008.Vol18.Ed5
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
Free to reproduce unless otherwise marked.
Please include this message with any reproduction.