We are offering these theses as background for the Revolutionary Youth Movement II resolution for two reasons. First, it is necessary that we all begin to discuss and clarify the fundamental principles of the whole anti-imperialist struggle. And it is necessary that we try and specify what principles are operative in the strategies and programs we see presented for the youth movement. These theses, for example, seem to the writers of the resolution to be the principles on which it is based. That is the first reason: principles out front. The second reason for presenting them, as background, is that we didn’t feel this convention should pass such a perspective without having discussed it beforehand in the organisation as a whole. Uneven education is the real basis of undemocratic organization and it would be nothing but opportunism to try and push through a perspective that has not been adequately discussed in the organisation.
1. Present-day U.S. capitalism, like capitalism in general, is based on the exploitation of labor, that is, the appropriation by the capitalist of the total product of labor, including that surplus beyond what is necessary to replace the money he has laid out for wages (the purchase of labor power).
2. The U.S. is in the imperialist stage of capitalism, the highest and last stage. The replacement of free competition by monopoly, the central feature of imperialism, has long been a fact of life in the U.S. In addition, the other distinguishing features of imperialism – the merger of bank and industrial capital to form an oligarchy of finance capital, the rise in the export of capita} as distinguished from the export of commodities, the formation Of international combines which parcel out the world among themselves, and the completion of the territorial division among the great imperialist powers (under the new conditions of the existence of genuine socialist countries led by Marxist-Leninist parties, fighting National Liberation movements, and the emergence of revisionism in the Soviet Union.)
3. The development of U.S. capitalism to its highest stages has meant a change in the structure of the economy of the U. S., in which we note several features: (a) fee increase in the number of capitalists and their hangers-on who depend for their income on the plunder of the colonial and dependent countries; (b) the decrease in the numbers of small capitalists together with the creation of the new middle sectors based on monopoly and the superstructure, for example, franchise-holders and jobbers and various employees of the state whose main function is to serve and protect the empire; (c) the increase in the numbers of the proletariat together with the relative growth within it of those whose sectors engaged in non-productive labor; (d) the creation, on the basis of super-profits from the colonial and semi-colonial world, of an aristocracy of labor and upon it a labor bureaucracy, which forms the basis of opportunism (collaboration with capital disguised as a labor policy) within the working class movement: (e) the driving down of the position of the masses of workers in relation to the bourgeoisie.
4. The present ruling class in the U.S. is the bourgeoisie, and the state is a dictatorship of bourgeoisie. Within the bourgeois class, the monopoly strata have emerged as the dominant and controlling voice. Taking advantage of their strength, they have increased the direct involvement of the state in the accumulation of capital, giving rise to state-monopoly capitalism.
5. In the U.S. as a whole there are only two classes capable of exercising state power: the bourgeoisie headed by the big monopolies; and the proletariat headed by the workers in manufacturing, extractive industries, construction, transportation, communications and agriculture. This is so because only these classes have a direct relation to the means of creating wealth which enables them, as a class-conscious force to create society in their image. This is not to say that middle sectors do not play an important social and political role, but always as representing interests of one or the other classes on each side of them. Hence, the strategic goal of the U.S. proletariat can only be to destroy the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and replace it by the dictatorship of the proletariat as the precondition for building socialism.
6. No ruling class in history has ever retired peacefully from the scene. Furthermore, no revolution has ever succeeded without the existence, for a or short period, of some form of dual power, whether that be territorial, as in the case of the liberated zones of China and Cuba, or right under the nose of existing power, as in the case of the Russian Soviets. In the U.S. the victory of the proletariat will not take place without a violent civil war and the existence of some form of dual power.
7. Because of the increasing difficulty of imperialism in imposing its policies on the peoples the world, the already eroded democratic form of bourgeois dictatorship is presently being formed into the fascist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The drive toward fascism stems from the most imperialist, reactionary, and powerful sectors of finance cap and the leading role in the fascist drive is being played by the official organs of the bourgeois state.
8. The expansion of U.S. Imperialism into areas of the world where capitalism developed later than in the west has brought indescribable miseries to the people of those areas, who have been transformed into subject, dependent nations. Within the juridical borders of the U. S. we have seen the formation in the deep south of the Afro-American nation, and the conquest and direct colonial rule of Puerto Rico.
9. Workers of the world are brothers. At the present time, the principal contradiction in the world is that between U.S. imperialism and the oppressed nations. It is the struggle of the oppressed nations and peoples, including the non-white peoples in the U.S., who are dealing the heaviest blows to U.S. Imperialism. There is no doubt that all of the oppressed peoples will master the concepts of building a national alliance against U.S. imperialism, will learn to wage people’s war, and will win their national liberation.
10. In the epoch of imperialism, recognition of the distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations is the central feature in a revolutionary program. The ability of the working class of the U.S. to carry the struggle against U.S. Imperialism through to the end and win its own freedom depends on its recognition that the U.S. is one thing and the nations oppressed by it, including the Afro-American nation, are another, and its ability to link up its struggles with those of the oppressed peoples. In order to establish these links, white U.S. workers must adopt as their own the slogan of the right to self-determination for the nations oppressed by U.S. Imperialism, which means the right to secession and the formation of an independent national state. It must be underlined that the slogan of the right of secession for the oppressed nations is a slogan directed at the working class of the oppressor nation mother country, and does not in any way suggest to the oppressed nations whether or not they should exercise that right, nor does the slogan carry with it any directions for the strategy of the oppressed nations. Winning the masses of white workers to the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the deep South and all oppressed nations requires a consistent struggle to repudiate the white-skin privilege which has served as the chief rationale for white chauvinism, and a consistent struggle for the democratic rights of the Afro-American people, including support for such demands as community control.
11. Because the dominance of the big monopolies has brought them into conflict with other strata of society besides the proletariat, it becomes possible for the proletariat to rally around itself masses of non-proletarians in a united front against the imperialists. Such a united front, which depends for its achievement on the independent, class-conscious actions of the proletariat, winning over or neutralizing large numbers in the middle sectors and isolating the most reactionary, dangerous, and powerful elements of finance capital. The key principles of the united front against U.S. imperialism, for which all revolutionaries must fight, are four: (a) the leading role of the proletariat within the united front; (b) the willingness to unite all who can be united against the monopolies: (c) the central role of the fight against white supremacy in the building of a united front; and (d) the fight against anti-communism. It must be emphasized that the united front against imperialism can only be a tactical orientation of the proletariat, not a strategy, since strategy means a plan for the basic realignment of class forces, which in the U.S. as a whole can only mean the undivided power of the proletariat, acting in the interests of the overwhelming masses of the world’s people.
12. In order for the U.S. proletariat to play its historic role, it must be led by a party of revolutionaries, organized on the basis of democratic centralism, guided by the science of the proletariat, the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. The party must be able to apply these teachings to the specific conditions of the U.S., in order to impart class consciousness into the spontaneous struggles of the proletariat.
13. The struggle to impart class consciousness to the proletariat necessarily involves a struggle against all forms of opportunism (bourgeois ideology within the working class movement) and especially in specific sub-category, revisionism (bourgeois ideology within the socialist movement). It is impossible to wage a struggle against opportunism without recognizing its connection with imperialism through the creation of an aristocracy of labor which receives bribes from the plunder of the colonial and dependent nations.
Six months have passed since we came together around the idea of transforming SDS into a revolutionary youth movement. The practice which has taken place within our movement has now made it possible to reevaluate the RYM and reestablish the principles of unity for our movement. The tremendous growth of SDS, the repression that has come down on the whole movement and the heightening contradictions throughout the whole society have made our job much more serious. There are problems both of general strategic direction and of particular practice that we must try to answer, and which the mass of our membership must be able to answer if we are to succeed. The purpose of this paper is to lay out the principles of unity for the RYM, and raise clearly the strategic principles of the whole anti-Imperialist movement in which the RYM must develop. This paper also lays out some ideas for a programmatic approach to raising the level of struggle in this coming period following from our principles of struggle.
How is it possible that there can be a Revolutionary Youth Movement such as is coming into existence today?
All societies, at all times, face the contradiction between the new and the old, between what is growing and what is dying out. The youth movement in America is, in the first place, an expression of this contradiction. The young tend to be the most open, innovative, and self-sacrificing. They are invariably the first to rebel. Mao says that while the future belongs to all of us, in the last analysis it belongs to youth.
Our society is dying out. Not only here but on a world scale, in a historic sense. Imperialism, the monopoly phase of capitalism, is nearing its closing hours. Our epoch is the epoch of the final collapse of imperialism and the final worldwide victory of socialism. Imperialism, fully moribund, manifests its decay everywhere. It pollutes all that is fresh, alive, vital, and growing. The young in general, but particularly among the oppressed classes and strata, are among the hardest hit by decaying imperialism. Hardest hit and most willing to fight back – that is the youth movement.
The ruling class would like to portray youthful rebellion as simply a generational or biological phenomenon. In fact, it stems from the particularities of American imperialist development. The youth movement has developed in proportion to the increasingly pronounced decay of this system. The fifties witnessed the temporary stabilization of U.S. rule. The American century lasted about 10 years. From a relatively isolated imperialist power, World War II has enabled the U.S. monopolists to dominate most of the world. But by 1960 the consequences of that insane scheme were becoming apparent. The short lived empire began to crumble. Young people were victimized on every hand.
The draft forced the military burden of fighting and dying in an unjust war on to the young. The increasing exclusiveness and discrimination within Trade Unions affected young workers, particularly black and brown workers. Automation contributed to the general capitalist trend toward greater unemployment which affected job seekers with little experience severely. The decay of bourgeois ideology made the schools into jails – either of force or boredom – which taught through repetition and answered through irrelevance. The decay of Bourgeois culture, inevitable in a climate of imperialist war and injustice, precipitated a cultural rebellion among those who were only just establishing their life style. The domestic militarization, particularly of the schools, made rebellion against all forms of bourgeons authoritarianism, from the principal on down, a matter of pride to the most advanced among die youth. The upsurge of national liberation struggles at home and abroad provided heroic examples of other possibilities. Cuba, Vietnam, and African struggles as well as the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese provided Inspiration and models. Finally, the sharpness of the contrast with those who came to adulthood In the fifties and whose outlook reflected that earlier phase – all this contributed to making the youth movement central to the U.S. revolutionary movement.
It is in so far as SDS has spoken to this condition of youth that our organization has grown and been able to play its part in the struggle to defeat U.S. Imperialism and build world socialism.
We must define our main task. We must develop a youth movement which can attack the main enemy of all oppressed people, U.S. imperialism, and seed an anti-imperialist movement among the masses of people, especially among the proletariat, without whom imperialism cannot be defeated. Out of this movement, revolutionary cadre must develop which will aid the development of a vanguard party necessary to lead the struggle for socialism.
The youth movement today – composed of black, brown, and white youth from different class backgrounds – is not something that has the task only of “lighting the match” and then flickering out. This youth movement must build and last if the struggle is to be successful. Youth must be in the front ranks of all phases of the struggle, just as now they are in the leading role in raising the fight against the main enemy – U.S. imperialism – throughout the whole society.
While imperialism oppresses all young people, the contradictious arise in a class and colonial way. They hit hardest on working class youth and especially black and brown youth. The basis for unity within the youth movement must be a fight in the interest of the most oppressed sectors of the people. This must especial be the basis of unity for SDS. The raising of class conscious struggles is the only basis there is for linking up with working class youth who must make up the backbone of any effective youth movement. It is on the basis that we can reach out to young people in working class high schools, in the army, on the streets, and on the job.
The plan of the RYM, for SDS as a fighting force against imperialism, attacking the schools and other imperial institutions, raising the demand that these institutions serve the people, fighting white supremacy and expanding to include more and more working class youths is well under way. But now, at a crucial phase, we are being faced with questions of strategy and correct position that could tear us apart internally or send us overall in a wrong direction – a counter-revolutionary direction. At the basis of these questions are fundamental conceptions of the strategy of the whole anti-imperialist struggle, the struggle for socialism. We must have an analysis of the main forces and principal contradictions in our struggle.
The basic perspective of the anti-imperial movement is this: the principal contradiction in the world today is between U.S. imperialism and the oppressed nations, including the black nation. This shapes the class struggle both in these nations and within the U.S. itself. Many of the main forces in the country which could be brought to oppose the imperialists now side with the imperialist against the oppressed nation. Therefore a pre-condition of any mass struggle against imperialism is winning these people to the support of the right to self-determination of oppressed nations. The struggle must unite people from all classes and sectors of classes that can be united on this basis against the imperialists.
The leading force in this movement, however, must eventually be the proletariat if the struggle is to be successful and lead to socialism. It is the class which has the power to defeat the imperialists, to carry the fight through to the establishment of socialism and guard against the resurgence of capitalism. It is only class which in ending its own exploitation must end the exploitation of all classes. In order for proletariat to lead, there must be a party that represents the interests of the proletariat and a mass base among the proletariat – a Marxist-Leninist party. Finally, since, it is only the armed might of state which in the last resort maintains the avaricious power of the Imperialists, there must be armed struggle on the part of the people if they are to have victory.
There are five main ways in which the youth movement relates to the anti-imperialist struggle as a whole. These are its principles of unity and strategy for action.
1) The youth movement must build itself into united fighting force against the imperialists. Given the particular oppression of youth under imperialism, it is possible and correct to unite youth from all classes into the struggles against imperialism. With the escalation of correct anti-imperialist struggles, the RYM must bring more and more working class youth into its ranks.
In order for this fighting force to grow from an agitational movement to a movement capable of destroying imperialism it is essential that the youth movement develop an international ideology which holds as its essential principles the fight against anti-communism, the fight against white supremacy and male supremacy, and the fight for the key role of the proletariat.
2) The revolutionary youth movement can be one of the main ways of bringing the anti-imperialist movement to the proletariat as a whole, especially today when the white sectors of the proletariat are dominated by the bourgeois ideologies of white national chauvinism, male chauvinism, anti-communism. Through youth, the anti-imperialism movement must greatly intensify its efforts to win the proletariat. Roads to the working class for the youth movement are through class-conscious actions against imperialist institutions and wars; mobilizing workers and working class youth to anti-imperialist struggles in the schools, shops, communities, and military; and making the anti-imperialist movement understandable to the mass of the people by joining in their struggles against bosses, oppressive community institutions, city government, taxes, the pigs, etc. as a revolutionary force.
The youth movement to date has been guilty of two errors in relation to the proletariat. The attempt to hold the struggles of the youth movement to the present level of most working class struggles through a student-worker alliance is tailism. It denies the leading role of youth today in raising the struggles against imperialism clearly and militantly. This position does not understand the basic principle that the mass of the proletariat must link up with the revolutionary struggles of Asia, Africa, Latin-America, and the Afro-American people if it is ever to win its freedom. It shies away from confrontation, for the most part, and does not speak to the ways in which young people feel the crisis in imperialism.
On the other hand, the denial of the leading role that the proletariat must eventually play and the outlook that those who are in motion now must be the main force leads to adventurism. This leads us to ignore the main force in the struggle in our organizing efforts and in our ideology.
Both of these common errors come from a lack of faith in the people. Much of the last six months has seen the RYM vacillating between the twin errors: tailism and adventurism. Sometimes we talk only about the international aspects of the struggle, the Vietnamese, etc. and say nothing about the class nature of the struggles in this country. Sometimes we are so busy organizing youth to confront the system that we lose sight of articulating clear class issues and doing mass work among the working class. On the other hand, sometimes we relate well to the struggles of the working people – in fights against the tracking system, tuition, in strikes, fights against the schools by the community, fights against police repression – but fail to identify imperialism as the main enemy and movements of national liberation as our allies.
Vacillation is inevitable, but if our understanding of the function of the RYM is correct, we will steer a course which avoids both tailism and adventurism.
3) A key aspect of the youth in ferment is its struggles against white supremacy. Struggles against the white supremacist practices of the schools this year have fundamentally challenged the basis of this decadent, oppressive society. We must carry this fight into all aspects of our work.
This fight is key because the main tactics of the bourgeoisie in maintaining the effective allegiance of the masses of white people to capitalism are relative material privileges for some, and a false ideology which holds that people of color are inferior.
Inseparable from the battle against white supremacy is the battle against white national chauvinism (the U.S. form of oppressor nation chauvinism) which denies the right of national liberation and state power to the oppressed nations of the world. It has been the justification for the imperialist plunder of the world. It took the mass of the “peace movement” five years to support the victory of the NLF and DRV in Viet Nam when victory means the right to self-determination, the military gains necessary to defend their land from all Imperialist powers. The mass of whites in the movement now, and throughout the history of the movement have denied (in fact, if not in words) the right of self-determination of the black people, which must be defined finally as the right to secession.
It is an important task of the youth movement to wage internal struggle against these so-called revolutionaries who counterpose the struggle for socialism to the struggle for self-determination of oppressed people. They are neither revolutionaries, nor are they struggling for socialism. Some of these attack movements of national Liberation – such as the courageous struggle of the Vietnamese – for not making the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat the basis of unity of the liberation struggle. They do not recognize the right to self-determination of the Black people, saying that they are only super-exploited workers, that all nationalism is reactionary. All these are guilty of white national chauvinism which amounts to putting the interests of the white ruling class ahead of the interests of the working class and the oppressed peoples of all countries.
Others raise the slogan of national liberation, but deny the possibility of liberation before the establishment of socialism in the mother country, or equate the national liberation struggle with the fight for socialism in the whole country. These do not understand the basic principle that it is the task of socialists in the mother country to defend the right and possibility of separation and secession while it is the task of socialists in the colony to fight for socialism. In the white movement we must raise the slogan of self-determination, and oppose those who chauvinistically equate it with the fight for socialism in the whole country. This does not deny that, because of the dual role of black workers in the mother country (both colonized and exploited as an internal work force), these black workers can play the leading role in the fight for socialism. It is only to say that the fight for the right of self-determination of the black people is a pre-condition to any kind of socialism in this country.
4) Further division and control of the proletariat has been effected through the ideology and practice of male supremacy. Male supremacy has arisen out of the relation of women to the means of production in society; that of unpaid necessary social, labor in the maintenance and reproduction of the labor force as a reserve army of labor used to keep down wages in general. Thus women are all degraded as sexual objects and are super-exploited: paid lower wages and denied access to the skills and trades for men.
The youth movement must fight against the male supremacist structure of this decadent society and the manifestations of this in the superstructure. We must raise and join women’s struggles throughout the working class and pay particular attention to the fight against male supremacy within our own ranks. Our task is to enlist women into the struggle against imperialism and the fight for the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations.
The youth movement will not only be in the leading ranks of the armed struggle, but it can now begin to prepare the people for the necessity of armed struggle, supporting armed self-defense on the part of all oppressed people, explaining the nature of the state, and supporting peoples war.
5) The youth movement can play a role in die development of a party by fighting anti-communism, developing communist ideology, and taking communist Ideology to the mass of the people.
1. Anti-imperialist program in the schools
The function-of the schools under capitalism is the preparation of an ideological army for imperialism. This preparation is accomplished through 1) courses designed to perpetuate anti-communist, white national chauvinist, and anti-working class ideology; 2) a “tracking” system based on maintaining class and colonial division within society which exemplifies and reinforces this ideology; 3) a grading system which promotes individual competition and the myth of “getting ahead”; and 4) a rigid system of discipline to penalize and smash any challenge or deviation from this bourgeois line.
Our objective is to turn the school into its opposite. We will attempt to turn out of the schools an army of youth to fight against imperialism. To do this we challenge the function of universities in training, research, and recruiting for corporations and for the military. We challenge racist admissions and curriculums with the slogan Open Them Up Or Close Them Down. We attack the track system in the high schools aid community colleges and all other forms of maintaining class and colonial structure like flunkouts, tuition increases, etc. We demand that the schools serve the community, that the schools be made relevant to the needs of die community.
A major ideological trend within the movement that we have to combat is “student power” which demands participation of the students in malting and enforcing the rules or operation of the schools. We already have the power to change the school because we can shut it down if it doesn’t change. We are not interested in establishing meaningless committees or diverting ourselves from the main object of our struggle.
Our program:
A. 1. End to tracking
2. No flunkouts or disciplinary expulsions
3. Open admissions for all black and brown students.
4. The teaching of the true history and social conditions of this decadent, imperialist society.
5. A real understanding of communism and movements of national liberation
6. End to male supremacy in the teaching classes, the content of courses, and the “tracking” of women into secondary roles and employment
7. A guarantee of decent employment for youth who are not given the chance of higher education.
B. 1. We support employees in their struggles to extract a better life in return for their work in schools.
2. We join in the struggles to make the schools provide day care centers, low income housing, cultural youth centers, etc. for the surrounding communities
3. We will attack the existence of military training and research programs, police institutes, etc. in the schools and stop their functioning by any means necessary.
4. We will attack the imperialist functions of university for its programs of university expansion.
C. We will give special support for black and brown student demands, because their demands challenge key feature in imperialist institutions today: the oppression of black and brown peoples and the attempt to win white people to the support of that oppression through the offering of white-skin privileges. We support the 10 point program of the Black Panther Panther Party on the campuses.
D. Just as we must attack the schools for their imperialist oppression and exploitation, so we must recruit youth from the schools to join with non-student struggles against other institutions in building a strong anti-imperialist, anti-war movement; and a movement that can respond to the specific repressive attacks against the people and the movement.
2. Roads to the Working Class
We will never be able to destroy U.S. imperialism unless the proletariat – white, brown, and black – is brought solidly into the anti-imperialist movement.
A) In order to bring the anti-imperialist movement to the working class we must understand clearly that imperialism is not in the interests of the mass of the working class, because it leads again and again to crisis with its unemployment, inflation, high taxes, bad working conditions, and the day to day exploitation of the wage worker.
B) We must recruit more and more working class youth into the struggle by continuing and intensifying our organizational efforts within working class high schools and junior colleges.
C) We must go into shops, plants, hospitals, to work, etc. not only for summer “work in” programs but more and more of us should be making longer commitments to live and work among the proletariat.
D) We must link up students involved in anti-imperialist struggles against the schools with community groups fighting against the immediate institutions of oppression: hospitals, churches, urban renewal programs, pigs, etc. The anti-imperialist youth
movement must serve the people. That means it must enter into the struggles of the people and help them to win. Especially, SDS should work closely with non-student youth groups in their fights against the police and courts. Many of us will leave school to live and work among these youth groups, developing the principles of the anti-imperialist youth movement.
E) Serving the people means giving material support to the many militant strikes and wildcats. In doing this we must attack the employer – the corporation or company – on an anti-imperialist basis whenever possible. The boycott against Standard Oil during the Richmond strike is a good example: give support on the picket line and in the boycott, but raise the anti-imperialist aspect of the struggle against Standard Oil.
The priority of the youth movement does not mean that we refuse support for most strikes and wildcats because they are not “conscious” enough for our liking. This is an elitist and un-communist attitude that falls away when we realize the ultimate importance of the proletariat in the anti-imperialist struggles. Neither does this priority give the excuse for paying more attention to faction fighting over slogans of support than to aiding the strike.
Just as the main way in which white workers are confronted with the anti-Imperialist struggle is through the struggles for self-determination of Afro-American workers, so the stand of the strike or wildcat on issues of white supremacy should be the key in determining our attitude toward the strike. If the strike is clearly a racist strike – like the New York teachers strike against the demands of black people – then we should oppose it.
F) We must take our movement to the youth in the military by going into the armed services and contributing our support to the anti-imperialist movement which already exists among the GIs.
3) Relationship of the Revolutionary Youth Movement to the Struggles of Black and Brown People
The struggle for self-determination of Afro-American and Puerto Rican people is the principal anti-imperialist struggle we can relate to. We must support and follow their leadership in their actions against the Imperialists; and at all times fight white supremacy through demands for black and Latin equality, and national self-determination whether the black and brown people on our campuses, in shops, and in the community are in motion or not.
Some people argue that 1) black and brown people will become “middle class” if they get into the schools, and 2) that community control fights are bad because they give people the illusion that “real power” could be won while the imperialists hold state power. Only the height of white chauvinism could think the first when one sees the militancy and political content of so many black student struggles today and through the history of the sixties. And only academic Trotskyists could refuse to join a progressive fight of the people because it could be co-opted. State power is the only non-cooptable demand.
We will try to win the mass of people to support of the black and brown people’s right to arm in self-defense against the military occupation of their communities.
We must mobilize to defend the black and brown movements which are now under so heavy an attack by the power structure. And we must take that defense to the mass of the working people in whatever way we can.
4) The Fight Against Male Supremacy
The structure of male supremacy in this society – in employment, social, and political institutions – and the ideology of male chauvinism is one of the chief barriers to unity in the fight against imperialism. In order to bring an end to the unjust treatment of women now and in the socialist society, and to unite all in our fighting force, we must wage a vigorous attack on male supremacy both inside and outside the movement. In particular we must carry the fight against male supremacy to working women, encouraging them and joining in the fight to meet their needs, such as day care centers, equal employment, humane abortion laws, and access to higher education. Within the movement, the fight must be waged by purging the movement of male chauvinist attitudes, and encouraging the leadership of women. As with other oppressed peoples, women must form their own independent groupings and caucuses within revolutionary organizations in order to ensure that the struggle is carried through.
5) Repression: The Heightening of the Contradictions
To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing. That the bourgeoisie finds it necessary to attack the movement shows their weakness. If Imperialism was not a decaying society their ideology would be sufficient to hold the masses passive. However the war, high taxes, unemployment, etc. clearly stow the failures of capitalism to meet the peoples’ needs.
To pull back from our work with the masses would be exactly the result desired by the bourgeoisie. They have escalated their attack on the movement, and the only way to beat that attack is to carry through a strategy for winning the war against the bourgeoisie, and ultimately defeating imperialism.
Therefore our essential program to fight repression is to carry through the program of the Revolutionary Youth Movement to reach out to the masses, particularly the proletariat, and to serve the needs of the people.
In addition, we must use all the means available to us as a means to prevent the leading elements of the movement such as the BPP and individual leaders from being imprisoned or killed. While courts are still available to us as a means of defense, we should use them to the fullest extent, using the opportunity each time we appear in court to make clear the political nature of the police, courts, and attacks on individuals.
In addition we must be prepared to defend ourselves by whatever means necessary when the courts can’t serve even the minimal protection they now provide. We must become skilled in the use of weapons and be prepared to use them to defend ourselves if attacked. We must also prepare ourselves by securing our offices and homes to prevent them from confiscating important files and materials.
As the armed might of the state comes down on the people and the movement as it has done recently in Greensboro, Berkeley, and hundreds of other places in the black and brown communities, we must respond by preparing the people for armed self-defense and eventually for armed struggle.
Armed attacks by the state must be used by the movement to explain to the people the necessity of arming for self-defense and the nature of the state. We must take every opportunity to explain that the state cannot be challenged except through revolutionary violence. This is its nature.
We must also fight against laws which are passed to disarm the people. While right wing groups are arming under the protection of fascist city pigs, it is increasingly difficult for the mass of people to obtain arms. The disarming of the people is the first stage of fascism.
The most important response to repression must be the extension of our ongoing programs in the schools, shops, and communities. The movement is being attacked now because it is taking up the issues of the people against imperialism. Our only protection is to continue our programs among the people, adding to them where possible programs of defense against repression. No sector of the population is in a state of armed struggle, and we will only win the people to the necessity of armed struggle through increasing and intensifying our political work.
6) Step Up the Movement to Defend Struggles for National Liberation
It is part of our function as a revolutionary youth movement to help build mass struggle against imperialist attacks on movements of national liberation and on communist countries. We must attempt to build this movement among all classes and sectors, especially among the working class.
We call for mass militant actions around the country linking the fight against imperialist aggression In Viet Nam with the fight against imperialist repression of black and Puerto Rican liberation struggles, and the movement within this country. Such an action could take place in September in Chicago around the trial of Bobby Seale, and the other seven indicted for last year’s anti-war action. Other actions would include local demonstrations, student strikes, and work stoppages. We must build for these actions through mass work in working class communities, in shops, and in schools. We must attempt to build city-wide collectives of people working in all three areas around this program. These collectives can be a great leap forward in building a city-wide anti-imperialist movement.
7) Develop Revolutionary Ideology and Organization in Our Work
We must take seriously the job of helping to build the communist party. There is no such communist party which exists today, no party which both represents the interests of the proletariat and has any mass base among the proletariat. There are things which we can do to help prepare for it.
We must study revolutionary principles of organization as Lenin, Mao, and others have written about them, develop collective methods of work and decision-making, and fight anti-communism along with elitism, manipulation, and individualism.
Finally the principles of Marxism-Leninism must be talked about openly in all our mass work and anti-communism taken on at every step.