The capitalist system of production and exchange and the entire economic system is breaking down, and an objectively revolutionary movement has begun. Little by little the movement is being forced to move its demands from the economic to the political sphere. All sections of society are being drawn into political discourse. In order to protect private property and stabilize the economy, the government is forced to begin playing a role in managing the economy and instituting nationalization in some form. The need for nationalization is objective — each class needs nationalization in its own interests. Because of this, nationalization becomes a battlefield on which the question of whose interests the state will serve is fought out. The economic crisis and the government’s intervention on behalf of the capitalist class to stabilize the economy are drawing people into politics and opening the door to a political struggle over class interests.

Sections of the new class — that new group of workers created by electronics in production – are beginning to awaken. The political and economic middle that formerly tied the working class to the ruling class is being destroyed; formerly stable workers are losing everything and being thrown into motion. As it is forced into the ranks of the dispossessed, this former “middle class” becomes the key link that can pull the rest of the class forward. For the new class created by electronics to succeed in their struggle to have their needs met, the class has to become conscious of itself as a class and be formed politically. It is on the battlefield of nationalization, in the fight over whose interests the state will serve, that the class can become class-conscious and form itself politically.

Whether the class becomes conscious depends on the ability of revolutionaries to do effective agitation and propaganda. We should bear in mind that the same people the League is trying to reach are also the target of fascist propaganda, and they could be won to fascism. Objectively, the ruling class needs to win the workers to fascism in order to maintain private property. A subjective fascist movement is being developed to carry out the fascist agenda. The fascists use the ideology of white supremacy and put forward propaganda that is anti-government, anti-Obama, anti-immigrant, anti-socialist, etc. Among other things, they seek to turn the workers against any notion that the state should intervene in the economy on behalf of the people. If we don’t propagandize and politicize the leaders of the masses, other forces will.

Master art of politics

The problem is that while people are objectively moving toward a communist resolution to the crisis, they are subjectively moving in another direction, and you can’t lead people who disagree with you. Revolutionaries have to unite the subjective and the objective – unite what people believe in with what they’re trying to do objectively. The next stage of the League's development is to begin influencing social activity. How can the leaders of the class be influenced and brought together around some kind of program? How can people be convinced that their enemy is the system of private ownership and not simply greedy corporations, convince them that their actual program is to abolish private property?

This process of influencing the leaders involves mastering the art of politics, the art of using the spontaneous motion to achieve our political goals. The example has been given of the abolitionists during the Civil War. They were dealing with northern workers who favored the union but opposed ending slavery. Through skillful agitation and propaganda, the abolitionists persuaded the northern workers that the survival of the union depended on destroying not just the slave power, but the system of slavery.

What should be the nature of the League's agitation and propaganda today? Agitation and propaganda have to be merged. Our propaganda can’t be abstract and theoretical, and our agitational activity can’t be devoid of propaganda. It is possible today to propagandize as we agitate. We can teach people broader lessons through using specific examples. Today it’s possible to show that communism is a practical solution to the crisis. To merge our agitation and propaganda we need to use current examples, such as the ecological disaster from the Gulf oil spill, to illustrate the lessons we're trying to teach.

Agitation and propaganda today

What is needed is specific programmatic agitation and propaganda that is along the line of march toward revolution. That line of march is from scattered economic struggles to united political struggle. Our agitation and propaganda has to propose concrete answers to real problems while also politicizing people — making them see that they are involved in a fight for political power — and moving them forward along the line of march. Nationalization in the interest of the people is the next step along the line of march. The League needs to explain the real cause of the crisis and demand that the government be forced to act in the interests of the people. We need to concentrate our efforts in those arenas — such as water, health care, budget cuts, education, etc. — where the objective antagonism between the classes makes it possible to bring the political edge to the fore in the struggle.

League agitation and propaganda also has to offer the revolutionaries who are our audience a vision of what they are fighting for, a vision of the new society that is possible with the new means of production.

The League participates in the practical struggles in the key arenas not only as activists but as propagandists. League members participate in the practical struggles of the class in order to position themselves to carry out the League’s mission “to unite these scattered revolutionaries on the basis of the demands of the new class, to educate and win them over to the cooperative, communist resolution of the problem.” This practical activity sets the context for our propaganda. If people's minds are not changed in these practical struggles, nothing has been won.

Agitation is uniting with the general direction people are heading and propaganda is an intellectual development. Propaganda is winning people over to communism. One is concrete. One is abstract.

League propaganda also has to be effective. It has to be put in terms that reflect American history and the psychology of the American people. We must be students of American history, and look carefully at what flows from American history in determining what is the next necessary step.

Editor's Note: This report was presented at a conference of the LRNA Agitation Propaganda Department, May 2010.

July.2010.Vol20.Ed4
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