Three Huge Differences
Longer version
April 8, 2024
Permalink: https://revcom.us/en/revolutionary-communism-vs-decolonization-theory-three-huge-differences-long
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ONE: DECOLONIZATION THEORY FOCUSES ON THE EFFECT—UNJUST AND SAVAGE COLONIZATION AND GENOCIDAL SETTLER-COLONIAL OCCUPATION—AND NOT THE ROOT CAUSE, WHICH IS THE SYSTEM OF CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM. THIS THEORY CANNOT LEAD TO LIBERATION.
Settler-colonialism has been a horrific nightmare everywhere it has been imposed—from the Americas, to Africa, to India and other parts of Asia, and certainly to the Middle East. But settler-colonialization was and is the product of a deeper system: the economic and political system of capitalism.
If the deeper cause is not grasped, then the masses will continue to suffer. Today, even though countries like Vietnam, Algeria, Haiti and others waged heroic struggles for independence, independence and land was not enough: their economies and societies overall remain dominated by one or another of the capitalist-imperialist powers (that is, the U.S., Europe, Japan, Russia, and now China).
THE NEW COMMUNIST REVOLUTION SCIENTIFICALLY IDENTIFIES AND MOVES TO UPROOT THE MAIN CAUSE AND SOURCE OF THE OPPRESSION: CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM.
The new communist revolution mobilizes millions to overthrow the system of capitalism-imperialism and establish a new state power. This new power leads and backs up the masses of people in creating an entirely new economic and political system. This new power puts in place structures and policies aimed at uprooting capitalist-imperialist oppression and all forms of exploitation, and all forms of national, “racial” and gender oppression that capitalism-imperialism cannot do without—including colonialism where it continues to exist.
TWO: PROPONENTS OF “DECOLONIZATION” TALK ENDLESSLY OF “THE PEOPLE.” BUT “THE PEOPLE” ARE DIVIDED INTO DIFFERENT CLASSES WITH FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT INTERESTS.
The theorists of decolonization talk loftily of how “‘the people’ will decide” and call for “following the leadership of the colonized or oppressed people.” But all peoples—including oppressed people—are divided into different classes and groups with radically different interests, corresponding to different programs. Talking about the will of “the people” settles nothing and can act as a smokescreen behind which new capitalist exploiters come to power. As bitter experience shows, national liberation struggles that do not take the socialist road will soon be drawn by a new “indigenous” capitalist ruling class under the boot of imperialist domination, and, once again, to harsh super-exploitation and bitter oppression for the great majority of its people.
THE NEW COMMUNIST REVOLUTION FIGHTS FOR THE OBJECTIVE INTERESTS OF THE PROLETARIAT WORLDWIDE AND ON THAT BASIS AIMS FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF ALL HUMANITY. AS PART OF THAT, REVOLUTIONARY STATES UNDER NEW COMMUNIST LEADERSHIP MOVE TO UPROOT ALL FORMS OF COLONIAL, NATIONAL, “RACIAL,” AND NEOCOLONIAL DOMINATION, AND ALL OTHER FORMS OF OPPRESSION.
As applied in the United States in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by Bob Avakian, the new socialist state can and will move to overcome the legacy of colonialism and all forms of national and “racial” oppression, in the context of the whole society going forward to socialism—along with uprooting the oppression of women, and all oppression based on gender and sexual orientation. In addition, the New Socialist Republic in North America will move to do away with the situation in which the United States has parasitically sucked the blood of the Global South and brought the environment to the edge of ecocide.
As applied to Israel, the solution is neither driving the Jews out of Palestine. Nor is it the phony “two-state” solution or some kind of nightmare Islamic fundamentalist state. What is required is a revolutionary struggle to abolish the state of Israel and create, as Bob Avakian has put it, “a revolutionary state in which the government and laws do not promote any religion and do not favor one people over another, and instead there is equality between Jews and Palestinians.”
THREE: TOO MANY PROPONENTS OF “DECOLONIZATION” ENSHRINE REVENGE AS JUSTIFIED; AND TOO MANY HAVE EXCUSED OR EVEN APPLAUDED HAMAS’S MURDER OF CIVILIANS AND TAKING OF HOSTAGES
It will be necessary to meet and defeat the violent instruments of repression of the capitalist-imperialist class; but in doing so we cannot sink to the level of the enemy. The argument that “decolonization is not a metaphor” is a justification for anything done in the name of “resistance.” But what’s needed is to end oppression, not become the new oppressor.
THE NEW COMMUNISM HOLDS THAT THE SYSTEM IN ISRAEL—AS IN ALL CAPITALIST-IMPERIALIST SOCIETIES—MUST BE OVERTHROWN, AND CANNOT BE REFORMED. BUT WE OPPOSE THE POISONOUS IDEA THAT THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS. INSTEAD WE INSIST, IN THE WORDS OF BOB AVAKIAN, THAT “THE MEANS MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH THE ENDS.”
How you fight—the principles that will guide the all-out revolutionary struggle that must be waged—has everything to do with what kind of society you are fighting for. Revenge degrades the person doing it as well as the victim, and will corrupt and destroy any real hope of emancipation. This is a core principle of the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian.