From ice to steam

Waiting for major changes, or qualitative changes, can be extremely frustrating, especially when those changes could affect so many people—like a revolution for instance. Imagine a major change in the balance of power between the ruling class and the working class, which the bosses depend on for their life-blood—profit.

But most major changes don’t occur over night. They are the result of incremental steps that make quantitative changes, the painstaking accumulation of which finally result in a significant shift that changes the relationship of one thing to another.

For example, take an iceberg. Apply the same amount of heat over a period of time and after a while ice becomes water—a qualitative change. Whatever happened to be living on that iceberg had better make major life changes or get swallowed up and drown.

When revolutionaries began advocating change in Cuba by exposing injustices, one after the other—passing out one leaflet after the other or organizing one meeting after the other—each of these quantitative actions built up the heat necessary to make a qualitative change in the consciousness of working and poor in Cuba. This change turned anger and rage into organized rebellion against their ruling class. The same process was repeated in many countries in Africa and Latin America.

Through the struggle workers become organized and build networks of communication, either through word-of-mouth or by pen ... or printing press. In fact, all the aforementioned revolutions, including the great Bolshevik Revolution, depended on communication facilitated by revolutionary publications.

Workers World newspaper consistently points out the lessons of struggle and remains anti-imperialist and unabashedly biased towards our class. Struggle is what Workers World newspaper is all about, with writers who not only report news but are the activists and leaders helping to make those incremental changes to build this movement into a powerful force against war, racism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, women’s oppression and the scapegoating of immigrants—all to build working-class-wide unity.

Our paper remains optimistic about the struggle because we know that even when the movement for social change seems to hide or be still for a moment, the collective memory of battles once fought does not go away. Coming on the heels of the racist genocide of neglect during the Katrina crisis, six Black youths from Jena, La., who never personally experienced slavery or Klan lynchings, felt to their core what those nooses hanging on the “white only” tree meant. And their actions made national changes to the consciousness of working people that will inspire further changes, and never be forgotten.

Qualitative changes are big and fantastic, but remember, quantitative changes make them happen. Today economic conditions are changing rapidly and may well provide the conditions necessary for the next qualitative change favorable towards revolution in this country. And major changes in this giant of imperialism have the biggest effect on the entire world. That’s why Workers World newspaper works so hard to highlight the struggles buried by the organs of the ruling class—the corporate media—and to show how these struggles contribute to the general movement for socialism in the U.S.

As we reach the end of this year and look toward this coming period of greater challenges to our class, we know this means greater responsibility for our paper. We need to make sure that we have the resources necessary to buy the equipment, stay connected and maintain the high level of reporting necessary to help make qualitative change in the belly of the beast possible. The corporate media are well funded but their money comes soaked in the blood of workers. We can’t use that money—we need your money to keep our lights on, machines well tuned and eyes wide open for the new year. If money comes with strings attached, then we’d rather be pulled by our class, not corporations. This is why we depend on you to make contributions and take out subscriptions.

Back to that iceberg converted into water. If you keep raising the temperature of water it makes another qualitative leap—it turns into a gas. That gas can power a steam engine that can move a steamroller capable of knocking down all barriers to winning real justice and liberation for working and oppressed people the world over. Help Workers World newspaper convert an iceberg into gas for such a steamroller, without even contributing to global warming!