Since capitalism is incapable of providing for our most basic needs, we need something new and better. We envision a world where all life is cared for and nurtured without struggle and hardship. Is this utopian? No, not when revolutionary conditions make transformation of society inevitable.

When one form of human society reaches the end of its development, objective conditions are set for a leap to another. We are undergoing such a leap. Capitalism has reached its limit of development and is in the process of destruction. Conditions exist for restructuring society on a new basis with the means of production owned in common and everyone's needs provided for.

This transformation is by no means automatic but requires conscious class activity. The historical role of an organization of revolutionaries is to understand the inevitable stages of revolution – the line of march – and to map out the path to achieve the goals of the revolution at each stage of development. This is the path to power for the class that is capable of restructuring society for the benefit of all humanity.

Inevitable stages of revolution

The line of march is not a straight linear process in which one thing automatically follows another. Its motion is dialectical; its stages are interconnected. Changes in the economy bring about a response; a movement for change develops. Conversely this social response interacts with the objective conditions. How well people understand the process and what they choose to do can either free up the objective conditions for further motion forward or retard their development.

The line of march of today's revolutionary process began with the introduction of qualitatively new electronic robotic means of production in industry and manufacturing, replacing human labor in production. This causes a break in capitalism's essential relationship between labor and capital, signaling the end of capitalism, and sets in motion the forces that can transform society.

The social force capable of transforming society must be outside of the relations of capitalism. Capitalism is creating this force by replacing human labor with computerized production and robotics. Displaced workers are forced into lower paying jobs and many end up permanently unemployed. They are unable to struggle against employers for the means of survival. Their survival depends upon demanding that the state provide essential human needs.

Thus, our class begins to engage in a political struggle and in this political struggle, the class becomes conscious of itself as a class with interests independent of the ruling class. The conditions are set for the economic polarization to become political polarization. This class is revolutionary because the only way to satisfy its basic human needs and to prevent capitalism from destroying us all is to fight to make the means of production public property.

Understanding this general revolutionary process is the first step in mapping out the line of march, but the future depends not upon a handful of revolutionaries having this knowledge, but on the masses of people understanding the course of history and acting on it. Thus, revolutionaries must put their general knowledge into practice. This is the art of politics.

Revolutionaries must be among the people who are in motion in the scattered day to day struggles that are the school of class consciousness. This class consciousness does not come automatically. Revolutionaries carry out an essential role in helping front line leaders understand how to carry out the strategy and tactics that ensure the struggle is moving along the line of march.

Victory in any battle or war depends upon knowing the enemy, understanding the battlefield on which we must fight, and knowing our own forces.

We are facing a powerful enemy. As capitalism comes to an end, the ruling class and the state it controls seek to hold on to the power they have, while preparing for a new form of society in which they hold exclusive domination and enrich themselves at our expense. With the centralization of the leading capitalist corporations and their integration with the state, they are attempting to wholly reshape the state and society through a fascist solution to the crisis.

Not every struggle is along the line of march. We have to choose our battles and focus on the battlefield where the class can learn the lessons that move it step by step from scattered struggles to class consciousness and political struggle. The struggle over nationalization is that battlefield. Nationalization is inevitable.

This battle has begun with the ruling class's bailout of the financial institutions, raising the questions: Who does the government serve? Who does the state serve?

Either society takes over the corporations or the corporations take over society. If we choose to fight in a planned way in the battle over nationalization, our class will become clear about its own class interests independent of the ruling class and will learn step by step what it must do along the line of march.

Concentrate our force

Our forces are scattered and sorely divided. Thus, we need to concentrate upon what is key to moving the whole class forward.

The driving force within this new class that can lead the transformation are the dispossessed, who once had jobs, and were even considered “middle class,” but have been thrown out of work and have lost everything. They have the organizational experience and the ability to unite the class and pull all social motion forward by raising slogans that are achievable along the line of march.

They demand real solutions to real problems. The historic task before revolutionaries is to guide the class through the stages that will bring them to understand that the only solution to their problems is to restructure society in their own interest, and thus, in the interest of all humanity. The line of march maps out the stages the class must take to achieve the power to transform society.

 

September.2010.Vol20.Ed5
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
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