Workers and Soldiers Everywhere Need Communist Revolution to Destroy Capitalist State Power
A US Congressional commission is investigating the fascist January 6 assault on the US Capitol. Was it a failed coup that tried to keep Trump in office by preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory, or just a show? This commission proclaims its goal is to “defend democracy” from this phony “insurrection.”
“I don’t have high hopes for the commission,” said a Red Flag reader, “but maybe we can find out enough to counter the disinformation.”
“Highly hypocritical,” said another. “The very structure of our government is so profoundly mired in corporate totalitarianism. The real fascist danger won’t be blunted by prosecutions. It will give the neoliberals the comfortable feeling they crave that the system is working.”
This situation raises questions that workers face everywhere. An insurrection is “a rising or rebellion of citizens against their government.” Whose government?
Capitalist governments aren’t “by and for the people” (citizen and immigrant workers). They are by and for the capitalist rulers, whether in democracies like the US or military dictatorships like Myanmar. It’s true in state-capitalist countries like China and Cuba.
Government is organized “state power.” It exercises the dictatorship of the capitalist class over the masses. Whenever we confront capitalism’s horrors and disasters, this state power blocks us. When we rise up and rebel, it represses us—as long as it can.
We need a communist world, where working people are in power. We can only get there by fighting and winning a revolution to destroy capitalist state power.
Fascist Coups and Communist Insurrections: More Different than Alike
Communist revolution aims to destroy the capitalist state, not to take it over. We will create a new and very different social organization of power.
The masses, organized by our communist party, will participate directly and openly in making and carrying out decisions. They will deal with anti-social behavior in comradely and collective ways, not with brute force.
Once we have crushed the last capitalist resistance, there will be no need or use for organized violence.
In contrast, fascist coups like the recent one in Tunisia or the failed pro-Trump January 6 riot aim to take over the capitalist state apparatus, not to destroy it. They use that state power against the masses.
The fascist “insurrectionists” wanted to criminalize Black workers and youth, migrants, trans people, abortion and more. They wanted to prevent the teaching of anything resembling science or the truth about racism.
Politicians on both sides of the “culture wars” use issues like these to distract workers from attacks on our jobs and well-being. They use racism, sexism and nationalism to divide the masses and increase our exploitation.
Communist power is the opposite. The masses need to defeat racism and sexism to unite ourselves in a collective system of production and sharing. Communism will liberate the study of science and history from their capitalist chains.
Fascist coups rely on the support of military chiefs and imperialist armed forces. The US ruling class is sharply divided. The delay in suppressing the January 6 riot showed that. But, for now, the US military brass supports capitalist dictatorship in its democratic (electoral) form.
Communist revolution, in contrast, depends on winning rank-and-file soldiers, sailors and Marines to turn against the brass and lead the communist revolution. We work now to convince them to join, support and lead communist working-class rebellions, insurrection, and protracted war.
We rely on the international working class to defend and spread communist revolution.
The ICWP’s Revolutionary Communist Strategy
Workers must organize for communism at the “point of production” (workplaces). Citizen and immigrant workers must prepare to lead broader masses to rise up, rebel, overthrow and destroy capitalist governments everywhere.
There is no peaceful way to rescue ourselves and Planet Earth from the ravages of capitalism. We must prepare for armed struggle – insurrections and protracted guerrilla war – until the capitalists are defeated worldwide.
Insurrection and revolution are always illegal. So are preparations for them. But the revolutionary masses have shown it can be done. We have much to learn from the victories (and errors) of the Haitian Revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune. From the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia and revolutionary history in China and elsewhere.
Capitalist state power is strong but not invincible. The masses can defeat it. We can win!
We will bring to birth a new world on the ashes of the old. This new communist world exists in embryo in our Party today. It will take shape and grow amidst hardship and class struggle. It will make leaps forward and suffer setbacks. It will develop unevenly and differently around the world, but always serving the interests of workers everywhere.
Let’s not be diverted or distracted by capitalism’s false promises of democracy. Let’s not be intimidated by capitalism’s open fascist terrorism.
We must struggle to engage the masses, always, in the process of planning and mobilizing for communism. We must help them see the need to join and build the International Communist Workers’ Party.
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