'What prospects for communism in the 21st century?'
WW
Party Conference: Excerpts from a talk by Larry Holmes
Just because a millenium ends, it doesn't necessarily mean
the end of an economic cycle or a phase of economic development
or a political period. And the beginning of a century doesn't
necessarily usher in a new crisis that charges the political
climate, engages and electrifies the working class and raises
their class consciousness, pushes them down the road to
socialism and to revolution.
This doesn't mean that the turn of the century is without
political significance. Psychologically it's a big turn. It's a
once-in-a-lifetime thing for most people and it raises all the
big questions of the century.
In our opinion, one of the biggest questions is this: What
are the prospects for communism, what are the prospects for our
struggle? So we tentatively raise that question at this
conference, aware that some would consider it a difficult
question to raise now while capitalism is riding high and
triumphant all over the place.
We concede some recent setbacks in the prospects for
communism in the next century. But I think it's also fair that
we pose another question in return: What are the prospects for
humanity under the continued rule of capitalism for another
century?
Capitalism is trampling all over the world, all over the
people, drunk with greed and the wealth that it's robbed from
the workers and the poor. The capitalists are drunk with all
the incredible technology and, instead of using it for people's
needs, they unleash it recklessly for the sole purpose of
extracting surplus value and making profit, creating
instability and crises along the way. They are also drunk with
their awesome capacity to wage war.
If you ask, what are the prospects for women, for oppressed
nationalities, for those who experience unique forms of
oppression, lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgender
people, Native people, the disabled, seniors-- what are their
prospects under more capitalism? Their prospects are
unthinkable.
The United Nations recently issued a report on poverty and
the retardation of social development in the former socialist
countries, including all the former republics of the Soviet
Union, and countries of Eastern Europe. They spoke to all the
vital issues: infant mortality, life expectancy, health care,
the rate of suicide, substance abuse, illiteracy, housing,
whether people have heat, whether they have jobs, damage to the
environment. On all of these issues, social conditions have
taken a nose dive off a cliff in these countries.
And in these countries, as well as much of the world, the
percentage of people living below the poverty level is greater
than at anytime in a generation. The percentage of people who
are starving is greater than anytime since World War II.
Here in the United States the capitalists boast of 10 years
of prosperity. Yet the most cogent thing you can say is that
with all this prosperity, the gap in income between the 50
percent of the population occupying the bottom half of that
equation and the top 5 percent is the greatest gap in
history.
This is what happens when union jobs are replaced with
low-wage, dead-end, non-union jobs, primarily in the service
sectors. That's what's hidden when they talk about unemployment
going down.
This is what happens when six million people are kicked off
welfare--which is what has happened in the past three
years--kicked into the streets with no jobs, deprived in most
cases of food stamps, of Medicaid, of training, of anything
they would need to go from "welfare to work." This is why in
New York this year 60,000 people were turned away from food
pantries because there wasn't enough food to give them.
This is why in New York, if you are in a homeless shelter,
not getting cash or medical benefits, as of Jan. 1 you have to
do work for that shelter. And if you don't do it, they'll kick
you out and they'll take your children.
And comrades and friends, this is pre-crisis. In other
words, this is before the bubble bursts, this is before the
stock market crashes. The crisis is coming, it's inevitable,
and when it comes the misery that I'm describing is going to be
magnified to the tenth power.
We have to ask ourselves, do we want another century of
this, do we want anther century of capitalism, do we want even
another decade of capitalism, another season of it? It's
important for us to go over this because among other things it
reminds some of us of why we became revolutionary com -munists
in the first place and how urgent our historic mission is.
It also reminds us of some of the basics, like the only
solution to capitalism is revolution. Capitalism won't melt
away, it won't dissolve or fall down on its own dead weight and
just disappear. The ruling class will not wake up to the error
of its ways and surrender.
The system has to be done away with and it has to be done
away with through the revolutionary process. The working class
and its allies among the oppressed remain the only social force
capable of doing the job, but of course they need leadership,
they need vanguard elements, preferably in a revolutionary
party, who are schooled in a revolutionary theory.
WHAT TO DO? FIGHT TO FREE MUMIA!
What is revolutionary theory put into practice? It's knowing
how to prosecute the class struggle at any given moment based
on the circumstances. It's knowing what to do, it's knowing how
to keep our class together, how to maximize solidarity within
our class and with its allies, how to maximize political
independence from the ruling class, and most of all knowing
what the interests of our class are.
And right now it is in the interest of our class and the
progressive movement, the African American people and all the
oppressed peoples to fight like hell to stop the execution of
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Why is this the case? Mumia's is not the only struggle,
there are many, many fronts in the struggle. [Here Holmes lists
many of the fronts, from the anti-imperialist struggle to the
union movement to the defense of other political
prisoners.]
But we feel we have to focus on Mumia to the extent of
putting aside other issues temporarily. We will even delay
launching our year 2000 presidential campaign and sending out
Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva to campaign as
revolutionary communists from coast to coast, as they did so
effectively four years ago.
But we focus on Mumia for a number of reasons. This issue
addresses the struggle against the police, the struggle against
the death penalty, the struggle to free political prisoners,
the struggle against rising repression, and the struggle
against racism and national oppression. At its core the most
pernicious feature of national oppression is killing people,
whether you assassinate them, whether the cops shoot them in
the streets, whether you poison them or electrocute them or
hang them or gas them in front of everybody, which is what
they're trying to do to Mumia.
But there's something else. This struggle over the years has
been so central to the progressive movement that its outcome
will be important to the morale and the health of the movement.
We must intervene and do what we can to make sure the outcome
is the one we want in this struggle. If this struggle succeeds
it will encourage the movement and lift all the other
struggles.
I think right now if we are able to do something that makes
a difference in the struggle for Mumia, the prospects for
revolution in the 21st century will be very, very good.
Free Mumia!
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