REVOLUTION: Why it's necessary - Why it's possible - What it's all about: Excerpts from a film of a talk by Bob Avakian
Revolutionary Worker #1238, May 1,
2004, posted at
http://rwor.org
The following is an excerpt from an historic talk by
Chairman Bob Avakian, soon to be available on video and DVD
from Three Q Productions-REVOLUTION: Why It's Necessary, Why
It's Possible, What It's All About. This talk, delivered in
2003, followed by questions and answers, is a wide- ranging
revolutionary journey, covering many topics. As Three Q has
described it, "It breaks down the very nature of the society
we live in and how humanity has come to a time where a
radically different society is possible. It takes us deep
into the heart of the horrors we see around us-from the
oppression of whole peoples and parts of the world to what
underlies brutal wars of domination-and why we live in a
world where profound poverty, starvation and exploitation
co-exist with unprecedented wealth. From the American
nightmare to a sweeping vision of a whole new world, he
breaks it all down, and shows how and why a radically
different world can be brought forward."
The following excerpt is taken from a transcript of the
talk, edited for publication by the RW. It gives a sweeping
vision of a thoroughgoing revolutionary society and what it
means for the masses to truly become masters of all society.
It talks about the role of the vanguard party of the
proletariat under the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the
instrument of the masses to overcome the wounds and scars of
the old society until finally, throughout the world, there is
no longer a need for parties or states, and a new world has
been birthed.
One of the main features of socialist society and one of the
main aims of the advance through this socialist stage to
communism, is for the masses of people to take up all kinds of
questions and to have their creativity set loose in all kinds
of ways. The aim is not just for people to have a job and work
at one job but to master many things, to contribute to planning
the economy to meet the needs of the people and to support the
revolutionary struggle worldwide. To developing medicine and
healthcare, to providing sports programs for the youth and the
population as a whole. To creating and producing music, movies,
television and programs on the internet. And writing poetry. To
political decision-making and the organization and
administration of society. To debating questions like whether
anything in the universe can actually travel faster than the
speed of light, and what lessons should be drawn from
scientific discoveries of many different kinds. And the aim is
to develop and unleash individuality and creativity on the
foundation of and within this broad and overall framework of
cooperative and collective efforts and goals.
These are not things that just a few geniuses can understand
and play a role in. The masses of people as a whole are fully
capable of entering into and taking up all these spheres, and
that is precisely what is and what must be made possible
through the communist revolution.
To make this possible, that the masses of people, and not
just a relative handful, can and will do these things, will
take a conscious consistent and determined struggle to overcome
inequalities that have been handed down to us by capitalist
society and thousands of years of unequal and oppressive
relations in society and in the world as whole. Overcoming all
that cannot happen without a system of political rule that
gives the masses of people the right and the power to do this,
and to prevent the overthrown exploiters or others from
sabotaging and wrecking this process. Once again, this system
of political rule is the dictatorship of the proletariat. And
all this cannot happen without a vanguard of the proletariat to
lead it in carrying out this complicated and often very intense
struggle to bring about these changes in society and in the
world.
In thinking about this, I was drawn to the example, which
might seem a little odd but has a real relevance here. I was
drawn to the example of Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong is one
of the great cyclists in the world, one of the great bicycle
racers in the world. He's won probably the most important and
major bicycling race in all the world, the Tour de France, five
years in a row. But back before that, a little while, his whole
bike riding and bike racing career was disrupted because he
developed cancer. When he developed cancer, he didn't say, oh
well, who cares if I have cancer. Soon as I get a surgery or
medicine, I'll just get right out and race again and be able to
win the Tour de France again. No. He knew that he needed
rehabilitation. He knew that he needed medicine. He knew he
needed people to help him be able to return to, and be able to
rise to these heights.
Now there's a great cancer in society. Capitalism. The
latest in a long line of sickness in humanity's existence.
Radical surgery and rehabilitation is needed. The seizure of
power and the revolutionary transformation of the world. This
is needed in order for humanity to overcome this. Lance
Armstrong needed people schooled in medicine and in physical
therapy in order for him to return to the position where he
could reach the heights that he has. And the masses of people,
the proletariat and the masses of people, need the dictatorship
of the proletariat and a vanguard party to enable them to fully
overcome the cancer of capitalism and finally to soar to
heights never before reached. (applause). They need this in
order to overcome the forces that represent the old society and
in order to overcome the scars and wounds from that old
society.
Now in all this, here is a great irony. There are those who
say they agree we need a different society, where a small group
does not dominate and exploit the rest. Yet while they say they
agree with this, they condemn the dictatorship of the
proletariat. They declare that vanguard leadership can only
lead to tyranny. They insist that there should be pure
democracy where right from the start everyone takes part
equally in decision-making without any established leaders.
Well, if they were to have their way, and there were an attempt
to change society and model it according to their vision, the
best that could happen, if you want to call it the best, would
be that people like them would become the new group that
dominated and exploited the masses of people, ruling once more
over the great majority, who have always been locked out of
political decision-making and the affairs of society and
government and who in reality would remain locked out of this.
This is the great irony involved in their thinking.
To understand why this is so, let's start with a more
immediate expression of this irony. Some people, including
those who are more familiar with political discourse and with
the concepts I have just spoken of here, they would have no
trouble understanding what I've been saying about this great
irony. Even if they didn't agree with me, they would understand
what I have been saying. But those who have been locked out of
any real involvement in the affairs and the direction of
society, those who have been denied access to the kind of
education and working with ideas that would enable them to be
familiar with the concepts I am speaking of here, an education
that would give them the facility to engage these concepts..
Those people would have no idea what I have been getting at
here. They would have no sense of what I've just been talking
about. "What the hell is he saying?"
So let's break this down. Let's start with the word irony...
what does it mean. One kind of irony is when you use a word in
a way that what you mean is the opposite of the usual meaning
of the word. Or what you are expressing at a particular
circumstance is in conflict with what actually makes sense to
say in that situation. Another kind of irony is when you do
something and the result of it is the opposite of what you
intended to happen. Let's look at some examples. You see
someone playing basketball on the playground. Or you see a
young kid singing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. You say
"she's bad" or "he's bad," actually meaning they're very
good.
Or someone comes up with an idea but it leads to everything
going wrong. For example, a group of friends get together one
day on a Saturday and one of them says, "Why don't we go to the
beach." So without looking into it very much or checking the
weather or anything else, they do get into the car and drive
off towards the beach. And they get halfway there and they run
out of gas. So they run down to the gas station and an hour
later they've got enough gas and they limp over to the beach.
They get to the beach and they start relaxing and all of a
sudden a storm comes up. They hadn't checked the weather. It's
going to rain that day. They get caught in the storm. So then
they get back in the car and they drive and they get a flat
tire and they have to fix the flat tire and finally they get
home and they're soaking wet and its been a mess and someone
says "Well, that was a good idea." (laughter) Obviously meaning
it was a very bad idea. Well, those are examples of irony.
Here's another example of irony. Someone has to catch an
airplane or a bus but they don't make it on time. Then the bus
or the airplane crashes and everyone on it is killed. There's
an irony here. If they'd been on time, they would have been
killed. Then the person thanks god for saving their life. That
too is an irony. (laughter) Because really god is being thanked
for causing a tragedy. If god gets the credit for causing that
particular person's life to be saved, by being late, you would
have to say that god also caused the accident that killed so
many people. And that's not something that a god should be
credited with and thanked for. But the bigger irony is that
they are thanking god and god does not exist. (laughter)
Returning now to the main point I'm making here. For those
people who say they want a society without one group dominating
others and they want to bring this into being right away
without any leaders to make this happen, the great irony is
that their program and approach would lead to exactly the
opposite of what they say they want. It would lead precisely to
a group dominating and exploiting others, and a further irony
is that this group would include them or people just like them,
because they would be familiar with everything that goes into
running this society while others have been locked out. Think
about the kinds of things that have to been taken up, the kinds
of problems that have to be faced and dealt with in building a
movement to make revolution in the first place and then to go
on and not just rule society, but completely remake it in the
interest of the masses of people and the interest of the whole
world revolution. All the kinds of things that I have pointed
to in the course of this talk.
To deal with all that requires an understanding, not just of
specific problems, but of the scientific method for digging
into problems and contradictions and for finding the solution
to them. It requires and can only be done with the kind of
communist, materialist and dialectical outlook and method that
I've spoken about. The masses of people can and will take all
this up and become masters of all these spheres and parts of
society and of society and the world as a whole. But to do
that, when we are starting out with a whole legacy and
tradition of tremendous inequality, brought about through
hundreds of years of capitalist exploitation and thousands of
years of oppression and the force and dead weight of oppressive
tradition - to overcome that requires and can only be
done with the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
leadership of the proletariat's vanguard party. It is
this which will make it possible for the masses of
people to more and more consciously and confidently take up and
conquer all the different spheres of society and to continue
advancing towards the point where everyone can really take up
and take part in all this on an equal basis.
Without this, and if people who have been locked out of all
this were suddenly told, "go ahead, you can take part equally
in everything - you can teach physics, you can practice
medicine, you can run a factory, you can plan a whole economy.
You can write about philosophy. You can organize the
government. There is nothing now to stop you. If they were just
told that, you know what they'd say? "What the fuck are you
talking about? (laughter) I don't know how to do all those
things." And they would be right. They would get angry and get
demoralized and discouraged because they would not know how to
do those things and they could not keep up with those who had
experienced the advantage and privilege of learning about and
doing these things in the old society. On their own, they would
not be able to do this. But with the leadership of their
vanguard, they would be enabled to learn and to do these things
- to take part more and more fully in these things. And even to
provide leadership to others, including specialists and experts
in these fields, in a way that didn't suppress but unleashed -
did not suffocate but unleashed - the initiative and creativity
of such specialists and experts. And that helped them apply
their expertise in an overall way to benefit society and
humanity.
It is the masses of people and not a handful of people, no
matter how sincere or even heroic, who make history. And above
all, the kind of revolution that is needed to completely change
society and the world, and put an end to a situation where the
masses of people are exploited and oppressed, this revolution
requires the ever more conscious and active role of the masses
of people. But once again, for this to really happen, the
masses of people need leadership, the leadership of their
communist vanguard.
As I emphasized in a recent interview with Carl Dix, you can
speak in the name of the masses all day long and rail against
leadership all day long in the name of the masses or in the
name of some other principle. But if you don't actually
recognize the need for leadership, and the fact that this need
flows out of the very contradictions of this society you're
seeking to overturn and transform, then you're going to leave
the masses entirely out of the equation, and there's not going
to be revolution, and certainly not one that leads to the
emancipation of the broad masses of people.
Without a communist vanguard - even if we could imagine that
somehow a revolution could be made, which in reality it could
not, even then -- given the great inequalities that you would
be inheriting, what you would have once again would be a
situation where those who were formerly on the bottom of
society would find themselves once more on the bottom, lorded
over and bossed around by people with more privilege and the
advantages that go with that. And/or you would have a situation
where out of anger and frustration, those who have been on the
bottom would blindly strike out, seeking revenge against anyone
who had anything that had been denied to them, including people
they should be uniting with. In any case, what you would soon
get is a return to a society based on exploitation and
oppression.
It is only with the leadership of a vanguard, basing itself
on the communist outlook and methodology, that these problems
and contradictions can be handled correctly and overcome. That
the situation can be brought into being in which the
proletariat, together with its allies making up the great
majority, actually rules and revolutionizes society, and in
which the inequalities left over from the old society can be
overcome in a way that embraces and more and more involves the
great majority of people in consciously and voluntarily
carrying forward this revolutionary process, and which leads,
finally, to the emancipation of humanity as a whole from all
relations of oppression and exploitation.
At the same time, through the advance of the revolution, in
overcoming these inequalities, with the leadership of the
communist vanguard, we will be moving in the direction of
reaching a world where, finally, there will no longer be a need
for a vanguard. There will not long be a situation where some
work only with their minds while others are worked, bending
their backs and wearing out their flesh, and still others
suffer and may even face starvation and death because they
cannot get work. No longer a situation where a few lead and the
great majority can only follow, where a small clique makes
decisions that must be carried out by the rest. And when we do
reach that point, where all that is no more, there will no
longer be a need for a vanguard party and for a state (or
dictatorship of any kind) to insure that these inequalities are
being overcome to the greatest degree possible at every point
and that the soil that gives rise to them is finally and fully
dug up. Reaching that point is exactly the goal of our
revolution and of the vanguard in leading that revolution.
To emphasize this crucial point once more, carrying forward
this revolution to reach the goal of communism is a matter of
dealing with the challenges, the problems and contradictions of
socialism, as a transition to communism, which I've spoken to
throughout this talk. It is also a matter of keeping in mind
and building on what our class and our revolutions have
achieved, the things we have brought into the world, that never
existed before. It is a process of learning from the mistakes
and the shortcomings in this as well as the tremendous
achievements. There is a great deal to learn and to do. A great
deal to be learned while we are doing, and a great deal to be
done while we are learning. A whole world to be conquered and
transformed through the back-and-forth process of making
revolution and at the same time learning more deeply how to
make revolution more thoroughly.
Yes, there is a danger. A danger that will remain until
Communism is finally reached worldwide, the danger that the
vanguard party can be turned into its opposite, turned around
from being the advanced force of the masses of people which
leads them in emancipating themselves, turned from that into a
new group of exploiters that rules over the masses and drags
them back down the road to capitalism and all the hell it
means. But the way to deal with this danger is not to try to do
without a vanguard party. To do away with the very thing the
masses need most of all in order to finally put an end to
capitalism and all exploitation and oppression - to rob the
masses of people of the chance to finally be free. No, the
answer is to continue transforming the economic and social
relations, the political institutions and structures and the
ideas that rule in society, to dig more and more deeply into
the roots and soil of exploitation and oppression and to aim at
nothing less than digging them out altogether all over the
world. This is what must be the guiding star for all who seek
all-the-way liberation. This and nothing less must be the aim
of growing numbers of masses as well as their communist
vanguard.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on
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