10 Starting Points for Proletarian Revolutionary Militants

Imperialism is facing an unprecedented crisis with no apparent solutions. Our struggles must push the contradiction forward, to make it harder for the dominant classes as a whole to recover, and to lay the basis for an alternative to be built in our—the popular masses’—interests. Let’s organize and mobilize to face the ongoing attack of a rotten system, and build our capacity until we can defeat it.

1) We must develop our theoretical capacity to understand the nature of the system, the mechanisms of its functioning, its dynamism and tendencies, its strengths and weaknesses, the reasons for its sudden rapid degradation, and its struggle for survival.

2) We must build organizations at all levels (revolutionary, intermediate, mass). Without organizations strong enough to defeat the system’s ideological, political and economic domination, we will always be at their mercy. The enemy won’t concede or fall on its own.

3) We must unify ourselves based on our class interests. We should engage in discussions not for polemics, but for the purpose of consolidating our unity. A genuine desire for unity should guide our struggle within the people’s camp. We must “fight to agree,” so we can stand together against this rotten system.

4) At the mass level, we must distinguish between fundamental and secondary disagreements, and not divide over the latter. Our unity must not be simply written on paper, but constructed in the process of struggle, under the principle that in order to face this decomposing system we must solidify the unity of the people’s camp, under the leadership of the autonomous working class.

5) An organization without theory is an organization with no compass, no guide for action. We need theory if we are to reach our goals. It should not be static dogma, but in a constant mode of rectification, evaluation and consolidation.

6) Solid popular democratic organizations at all levels are constructed within the dialectical motion of the relationship between theory and practice. In this relationship, practice is determinant. The purpose of theory is as a guide to practice. We do not need to merely interpret and understand reality for its own sake, but to radically transform it.

7) An organization with a theory but no practice is a harmless study group. It will be unable to determine any goal, much less achieve it. Without its relation to practice, theory not only has no purpose, but is also motionless, comatose, unable to expand or advance. Our practice validates (or not) our theory, and allows our theory to grow and develop, in order to further advance our practice.

8.) Knowledge is not the property of a few, but belongs to all of us. Among us, it is most powerful when it is collective. The more that knowledge is collectively appropriated, the more solid and democratic our organizations are. In this process, we become more collective in our definition and understanding of the system, and of how to render it null.

9) Solutions are right here in front of us, not hidden in any formulas or scriptures. Only through struggle will the correct line emerge to guide us in discovering the solutions to our problems. We need to learn from the past with the objective of going beyond the past, not remain stuck there as the caravan of life passes in front of our eyes.

10) History will always advance whether we develop the tools and concepts to understand it or not. We can’t stop the advancement of history, so we should strive to understand it, with the objective of influencing it to the greatest extent possible. If, instead, we try to fit the dynamics of history into the parameters of previously acquired knowledge or incomplete concepts, or if we reject the use of concepts because of ideological issues such as dogmatism and sectarianism, then our understanding will be lopsided, limiting our capacity to intervene.

Advancing in our struggle is a must, or capital will continue to destroy our lives and the entire world itself. It is our historical task, and our great desire, to overcome capital, to achieve the emancipation of humanity for a classless and sustainable way of life.

http://koleksyon-inip.org/category/starting-points/

One Struggle’s new newspaper is available in print & online. It’s f*cking great, a real collective accomplishment.

http://onestruggle.net/2013/05/01/newspaper-number-3-spring/

(5/3/2013)
It’s important to make a distinction between workers who produce surplus value and service employees, because the entire capitalist economy rests on the surplus value generated in the production of commodities. This is the only new value produced in capitalist society, and it is generated in the labor process itself, as the worker is making physical commodities that can be bought and sold. That’s what exploitation is: taking this value produced by the worker.

Not all wage earners produce surplus value. Many are involved in the process of moving it, selling it, marketing it, re-selling it — that is all circulating what has already been produced. They provide services — use values — not the same thing as surplus value. Though profits are made in circulation, it is mercantile profit, money changing hands — no new value is being generated. The money to pay for circulation comes from the surplus value generated in the production process.

And further, speculation generates profits too, but this is still not generating new value, but value changing hands. When prices become inflated extremely out of proportion to the concrete value of the commodities being speculated on, it can become toxic (like the housing bubble). All profit in the circulation process is tied to and depends on the original surplus value produced when the commodity is manufactured. As soon as it’s produced, it embodies all the concrete surplus value it will ever have, and everything else is generated by circulation. Marx was clear on this. His speech “Value, Price and Profit” was helpful to me in grasping it.

This is not to say that the circulation of commodities isn’t necessary to realize this value: it is. But while the price may be higher down the retail chain, concrete value has not been added.

To understand service employees as members of the petit bourgeoisie, I found “Classes in Contemporary Capitalism” by Nicos Poulantzas to be extremely helpful. This was written in the 1970s, during the rise of service economies in imperialist social formations, and so is somewhat out of date, but it is still really useful.

He called service employees “the new petit bourgeoisie” at the time. That sector of the petit bourgeoisie is not really new any longer, and I don’t think that the label of petit bourgeoisie (without a different qualifier than just “new”) is very useful today. (I think it‘s accurate, but confusing). I think service employees are emerging as a distinct fraction of the petit bourgeoisie, with their own experience (impoverishment), emerging ideology (individualism paired with despair), and political practice (Occupy) and representatives (Ron Paul, Black Bloc, NGOs).

And so, in my opinion, it can be confusing to lump them together with the traditional petit bourgeoisie (like doctors and small retail owners), even though their relationship to production is still qualitatively the same: assisting in the circulation of capital.

This confusion is in fact causing them to define themselves as workers. Because in fact their experience is closer to workers than to the traditional petit bourgeoisie. And many people move between the two fairly seamlessly (it’s not a big jump in pay or training from unskilled factory work to retail service, whereas there’s a huge gulf between retail service and high-level professions, even though the latter two are technically in the same class and the first two are not).

This is all *not* to say that this class, and others, don’t have a role to play in revolutionary struggle: they absolutely do. Just like capitalism can’t function without them, the revolution can’t either. ALL dominated classes need to be aligned with the working class, for revolution to succeed. That’s the reason that revolutionaries work among them. And often they are the first to become politically active, to respond to changing conditions.

The point that is often forgotten though, and which I am insisting upon, is that productive workers, the working class, as the ones who are at the core (or foundation) of the entire capitalist economy, who produce the surplus value that allows the existence of profit and its re-investment as new capital, is the only class in fundamental antagonistic contradiction to capital. By emancipating themselves as workers, they have to destroy all the myriad social relations (in the economic, political and ideological fields) that make up capitalism. This puts them in a unique position.

Classes struggle to reproduce themselves. Service workers struggle for market equality, to sell their services for higher prices. They are dominated and crushed by entities with more market power. They can hurt capitalists by blocking the flow of capital, and that’s very positive. But their struggle, by itself, will not lead to the elimination of capitalism. Their struggle for fairness and equality will be confined to the market, where they operate. That is the boundary, the limit, of that struggle.

Workers who produce surplus value are the only ones who, by asserting their interests and following them through to their endpoint—stopping exploitation—can end the production of surplus value, and thus the reproduction of capital. Only they can follow through to the goal of overturning capitalism. No other classes will go that far (and that has been shown, historically, time and time again). This is why the working class must lead the revolutionary process, if we are to achieve the defeat of capitalism. They have to build an alliance with all the other dominated classes, who will together overturn the system. But their line must lead, or capitalism will be quickly reproduced/restored (as occurred in the Soviet Union and China).

In China, there was, like in the US, a difficulty in that the proletariat (the working class) was very small in number. They relied heavily on an alliance with the vast numbers of small peasants (who are in the petit bourgeoisie) to win power. But while this was necessary, it was a contradiction that unfortunately did not get resolved favorably for the proletariat, a loss which led to what we see in China today. Those inside the Party who took the capitalist road did so because they represented the petit bourgeoisie, and the line representing the proletariat was defeated.

This discussion may seem very esoteric to some, but to understand these things is extremely important for those who want to fundamentally transform society. When a proletarian line is not leading the revolutionary process, there are huge consequences. The world would be quite different now if the working class had not lost power in China.

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

*May 02, 2013*

*Walmart:  Stop Making Profits on Blood*

*Davie, Fla., May 04, 2013 - South Floridians Demonstrate Solidarity with Bangladeshi Garment Workers at Walmart Super Cente*r

In the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse in Savar, Bangladesh, over 400 garment workers are dead; more than 1000 are injured; 140 plus are missing.  Workers, outraged, are in the streets by the thousands. The Rapid Response Network (RRN) calls on South Florida consumers, workers, and organizers to stand with Bangladeshi workers, and to demand that retailers, like Walmart, stop making profits off the blood of exploited workers.  A demonstration will take place, Saturday, May 04, 2013 at 11:00AM at Walmart Super Center, Davie - 4301 S University Dr, Davie, Florida 33329. The RRN, alongside Bangladeshi workers, demands a living wage, safe working conditions, and the right to organize for all workers.

Wages in Bangladesh are the lowest in the world. Those who organize for basic rights – a living wage, a safe place to work – are beaten, fired, and even killed. Walmart enforces these foul conditions with their demands for the lowest cost and most fast paced production. Bangladesh ships about $15.6 billion of ready-made garments each year - about 80 percent of its total exports. ¹

In November 2012, 112 garment workers were killed in the Tazreen factory fire in Dahka.  Locked safety exits, barred windows and managers who demanded they get back to work trapped workers inside.  Prior to the Tazreen tragedy, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shareholders rejected a proposal to require suppliers to report annually on safety issues at their factories, as it “could ultimately lead to higher costs for shareholders and customers and would place Walmart at a competitive disadvantage.” ¹

Garment worker Mongidul Islam Rana told Associated Press: “We want regular salaries, raises and absolutely we want better safety in our factories.”

Walmart makes $15.4 billion annual profit.  In the last 6 months, at least 489 Bangladeshi workers died making clothing for them and other retail brands.  In the U.S. Walmart store employees and warehouse workers suffer low wages, long hours, no benefits, and no union organization.  Walmart cites consumer demand for cheap products as part of the reason for maintaining exploitative and dangerous working conditions around the globe.

Just three days following May Day – International Workers’ Day - the Rapid Response Network rallies on Saturday, May 4th to connect workers’ struggles internationally, to connect workers with consumers in one unified demand of Walmart: a living wage, safe working conditions, and the right to organize for all workers everywhere.  No more profits off the backs and blood of workers.

¹ Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-bangladesh-building-retailers-idUSBRE93Q04H20130427


*About Rapid Response Network & One Struggle*
*

The Rapid Response Network (RRN) is a One Struggle initiative.  Its purpose is to offer prompt solidarity to the struggles of workers against exploitation and repression, and to alert groups and individuals of situations that could benefit from immediate attention. Network participants do not necessarily share One Struggle’s overall viewpoints, but unite for the single purpose of offering solidarity to these struggles of workers.

https://www.facebook.com/RapidResponseNetwork

One Struggle is an anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist organization with chapters in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and New York.  Its mission is to help build a mass movement to expose and resist the global imperialist system and its effects.

http://onestruggle.net

Contact: One Struggle Miami

Email: onestruggle.southflorida@gmail.com
###

If you’re in South Florida, here’s a pdf of the flyer for tomorrow’s rally against Walmart, that you can print out, copy and distribute.
http://minimumsecurity.net/vampire.pdf