To develop a strategy to bring our class to the stage where it can wage a successful struggle for political power in its class interests, revolutionaries must understand the process of social and political change.
Classes are groups with common economic interests that can act politically to achieve changes beneficial to their interests.
During periods of stability, when the legal and political system conforms to and supports economic progress, legislative and electoral politics allows for changes and adaptations in the system. These occur, often accompanied by social and political turmoil, but without threatening the system itself.
At certain junctures of history, fundamental changes in the economy occur. Old classes are destroyed, new classes form, and the old order is unable to accommodate new realities. These transformations occur throughout history. We are in such a period of transition and transformation now, from industrial production to electronic production.
In such periods, a new way of organizing society, a new system of power relations is called for. The old system is unable to adjust to the changes brought about by economic progress. As the conflict plays out in the legal and political system and in society, these junctures of history are periods of profound instability. All of society is drawn into political struggle – the struggle over which class is going to hold power and organize society in its interests. This political struggle to reorganize society is only possible in such times of transition.
The fight for what they need to survive will force the workers to confront the question of which class holds political power and in whose interests. They cannot recognize, act on, or develop strategy and tactics without the consciousness of their own class interests, and the need for a political solution to the problems they face. A strategy and an approach that politicizes and educates from within this broad awakening to develop consciousness of class is no longer a theoretical issue, but a practical necessity.
Excerpted from “Political Struggle Requires Understanding of Class and Strategy”, Rally, Comrades! March/April 2010, available on our web site.
August/September 2011.Vol21.Ed4
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