‘But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations… This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.’
– President John Adams, letter to prominent Baltimore journalist and newspaper editor Hezekiah Niles,
February 13, 1818

It is perhaps difficult today to understand the profound effect the American revolution had on the world’s imagination. The world was set on fire by the prospect of throwing off the shackles of the old order and creating a world based on liberty and equality. World capitalism’s nascent development worked against the constraints of the old feudal order, but economics on its own could never be enough. In the end people make history. President John Adams’s letter to the Baltimore journalist Hezekiah Niles did nothing more than state what every revolutionary knows: it is ideas that change the world.
The article Thomas Paine, “Lessons of an American Revolutionary,” evaluates Thomas Paine’s indispensable role as a propagandist of the revolutionary ideals and vision of the American Revolution of 1776. The power of his writings coupled with the historical changes underway inspired all who sought to overturn tyranny and create a new world. He deliberately wrote for a mass audience, seeking to influence minds toward not simply a break with England but for a society without want and one based in democracy and human rights. Indeed, he popularized the concept of revolution as a political concept signifying liberation from oppression, and he called for revolution as the necessary condition for the establishment of a just civilization. These ideas mobilized thousands to break with the old order and stand as a beacon to revolutionary movements throughout the world, then and since.

Paine wrote at the beginning of the rise of the capitalist system, as its representatives were fighting for political supremacy and independence from the old feudal world order. Today, we face a different situation all together, but the revolutionary role of the human mind remains the same today as it was then.
Revolution is set in motion first in the economy with the introduction of some means of production that revolutionizes how goods are produced. The article, “New Epoch Makes New World Possible,” examines the electronic technology that is the foundation of the revolutionary changes of today. No longer confined to industrial production, electronic production is spreading rapidly through every sector of the economy. What could free workers from back breaking toil, the capitalists have turned only into the means of greater profit, eliminating jobs, spawning unemployment and poverty, and giving rise to a growing discontent.

But this labor-replacing technology is revolutionizing more than production. It is striking at the heart of capitalism – the system of production and distribution and everything that is based upon it. A vision of a society where all can be provided for has moved into the realm of practical reality. Production without labor inevitably calls for distribution without money, making a cooperative, communist society for the first time in history a practical solution to the concrete problems of a crumbling system.

Revolution starts with a change in the economy, but that revolution can only be completed through a battle for ideas that focus and sharpen the mind along the path to the ultimate goal. The combatants must clearly understand their situation, a vision of what is possible, and the steps to go about realizing it.
“Understand this Moment, Stay on Course” addresses the roots of the current crisis, examines the stages and dimensions of the revolutionary struggle and draws conclusions for what we can expect in the coming period and where revolutionaries can concentrate their energies to make a difference. Today, that concentration is along the line of the program of the mass of dispossessed and in every practical struggle that reflects that.
The article, “Struggle for Revolution to Make Reform Possible,” shows that structural reform of the system is no longer possible. Electro-mechanical means of production was the basis for reform under capital. That foundation is now being destroyed by electronic production. The only “reforms” we will be able to achieve are through a social revolution that restructures society to be compatible with the electronic labor-replacing means of production.

How is this to be done? Revolutionaries fight from within the arising struggles to wring every concession from the capitalist class, while disseminating the ideas that will answer the questions of cause, strategy, and the way forward.
To influence the direction of things, revolutionaries must influence the social activity of the combatants. Otherwise, the inevitable upsurges and struggles will never be able to move beyond where they are at that moment of their uprising. “Agitation and Propaganda: What is Needed Today” shows that agitation and propaganda today must focus on the real cause of the crisis, demanding that the government be forced to act in the interests of the people. It must inspire with a vision of the new society that is possible and offer a means of achieving that vision.

Revolutionaries throughout our country’s history have fought to fulfill that first promise of the American Revolution of which Paine so eloquently wrote. The privilege and duty of completing the work of those who came before us now lies on our shoulders and our ability to make truth shine through. As Paine wrote all those years ago “Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.” (Rights of Man, 1791)

July.2010.Vol20.Ed4
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