From the streets of Paris to the ancient cities of Baghdad, Beirut and Jakarta, to Chile, through Bolivia and Colombia, to the Southwestern border towns and bayous of Louisiana, to the fire-blasted California neighborhoods, to the industrial cities of Flint, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia, to the mountains of Appalachia, the workers of the world are fighting to remake the world.
Tied together through the world market birthed by the electronic revolution, they share common demands not only for their basic survival, but also for their respect and human dignity. As they fight in the streets against the conditions that drive their lives further to the brink, they are coming to see they cannot get what they need without political change.
The article “Striking a Blow Against Corporate Rule in 2020,” clarifies how the fight for political democracy cannot be separated from the battle for the basic economic demands of the new class: food, water, housing, health care, and education. People cannot meet their basic needs without political democracy, and ultimately, political democracy cannot be secured without economic democracy.
The world economy and society are being revolutionized by technological advances of the microchip, computers, smart phones, and artificial intelligence. Human labor is being eliminated from production and a new class of workers is increasingly forced to confront the system of private property to survive. In this sense, they are an objectively communist class.
Revolution is now a historical inevitability. The overwhelming political demand of today is to prepare the people for this inevitability, through the introduction of new ideas.
“World Polarization, Destruction and Transformation” shows how the antagonism between the developing productive forces (robotics) and the productive relations (capitalism) is giving rise to deep economic, social and political polarization within the country and around the world. Once polarization takes place, the opposing classes begin to stir and begin to fight each other. Only when there is motion — movement and struggle — on the part of the opposing social forces, is it possible for revolutionaries to play a role in history.
“New Class, New Awareness for Puerto Rico” illuminates how the massive “Renuncia, Ricky” protests were actually part of the popular eruptions of the new objectively communist class, challenging austerity policies imposed by ruling classes from Perú to Chile, Argentina to Colombia, and resisting neofascist uprisings from Brazil to Bolivia. These events are the ink with which the revolutionary writing on the wall is being drawn. For the flashes of consciousness expressed in these struggles to result in transforming society to meet the people’s needs it will require developing a larger vision, based on understanding the economic system in which these struggles are embedded.
“From the Editors: Today’s Moral Imperative” shows that while the enormous wealth being amassed in fewer and fewer hands has exposed a level of selfishness and inhumanity by those who rule this country, our class still feels and practices a fundamental morality that simply cannot tolerate the wholesale destruction of human life and are acting on that morality.
“Children at Center of Chicago Teachers Strike,” shows that the most important achievement of the strike was to help develop the understanding that classes exist and the interests of these two class are not the same. A new vision is necessary to move forward, one where the basic necessities and a cultured life belong to all. A tremendous effort to unite our class practically and intellectually is necessary to bring this vision to fruition.
“Celebrate the Life of Comrade Bob Brown” bears witness to the contributions of Bob Brown, a life-long revolutionary and member of the Editorial Board of Rally, Comrades!. Bob had a deep and passionate commitment to a transformed future for humanity. As a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, he understood the necessity of an organization of conscious revolutionaries at this time if our class is to achieve its ultimate aim. Bob also liked to say that he was “just a guy,” and he epitomizes how all of us even as individuals can make a difference, can make a contribution to history.
All the conditions are in place for the world we desire. We need only to see that reality and act on it. “New Year, New Class, New Vision” confirms that with a clear understanding of where we stand in history, we can work together knowing it is within our power to end homelessness and hunger and war and environmental destruction forever. A cooperative society that works together to solve our problems, based upon the distribution of abundance according to our needs – a communist solution – is the practical response to the problems faced by a society which has too long been driven by private property and profit. With this vision in hand, we bring hope and energy to 2020 as the beginning of a new epoch in human history. RC
January/February 2020. Vol30.Ed1
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