First Published: Red Worker, Vol. 1, No. 1, October 1971.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The Georgia Communist League (Marxist-Leninist) is an organization of revolutionary communists. We work in the shops, factories, and nulls of this city. We have taken an active part in many of the struggles of working people to improve living and working conditions. As Communists we are distinguished from other working men and women only by this: At all times we point out die ultimate aim of the class struggle – socialist revolution and communism – and at all stages we strive to prepare the working class to fight for this aim. The Red Worker is the political newspaper of the GCL. In the rest of this article we will try to briefly state our view of the current situation in the US, what we stand for and why we are publishing this newspaper.
A great revolutionary storm of mass struggle has risen in the US.
Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” in this country are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. Nixon’s “New Economic Plan” is phony. It casts all the burden on the workers – wages stay the same, but profits continue to rise. The government is showing who it really serves by taking an active role in breaking strikes everywhere. The national oppression of Afro-American and other minority people is sharply increasing. The cops are able to brutalize and murder Black people almost at will. Discrimination against Black people, reflected in the casualty lists from Vietnam and the unemployment statistics, is increasing rather than decreasing. The aggressive, imperialist war against the Vietnamese people continues despite the opposition of the vast majority of the American people. The situation in health care, housing and government services is rapidly deteriorating.
The source of all these conditions and injustices in the man-eating system of US monopoly capitalism.
This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labor and do no work themselves, except running all around the world spending the money that we made for them.
The GCL stands for the complete overthrow of the US capitalist system, and the establishment of a government run by the working class – a socialist system. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from racism, from bad housing and from the general misery of people, these problems can be quickly solved.
There is only one revolutionary class in the U.S., only one class capable of leading the struggle for a successful socialist revolution. That class is the working class, especially the workers in the largest and most developed factories and enterprises – the industrial proletariat. In the words of two great working class leaders, Marx and Engels:
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!
In order to accomplish its historic task of socialist revolution, our class must have a political party. The GCL is fighting to help establish a new party of the working class – a new communist party. Such a party must by guided by revolutionary theory, that is, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought applied to the concrete conditions of the US. It must be fighting party with iron discipline. It must be militant vanguard party that practices criticism and self-criticism and is closely linked with the masses. The core and backbone of a new party must be the most advanced, class-conscious and self-sacrificing men and women of the working class. Such a party cannot be formed until these men and women want it and join in the fight for it.
There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them, which we will try to present in the pages of this newspaper. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of capitalism and attempt to sabotage the struggle of the working class. The worst of these traitors to the working class are the Modern Revisionists. They have earned this title because they attempt to “revise” and “improve” Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought – to cut the revolutionary heart out of it. They are represented internationally by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in this country by the Communist Party (USA).
Because of the betrayals of some so-called communists, the building of a new vanguard party of the working class is an urgent task. The capitalist class is highly organized – they have the government, the cops, the courts and the army to protect their interests. The experience of the working class movement here and the international experience of the working class and national liberation movements confirms that it is impossible to make and consolidate a successful revolution without a revolutionary party.
The stand of the GCL is based entirely on the science of Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tsetung Thought. This science is drawn from the world-wide experience of the struggles of the working class and oppressed people for their liberation.
Marx, Lenin and Mao Tsetung analyzed this experience and raised it to the level of revolutionary scientific theory. With this theory we can determine the correct program and strategy – a plan for revolution. With this theory we can successfully rally the masses of people to strike a decisive blow at our main enemy. Without It we can only respond to events as they arise, never making progress toward revolution.
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is our guide to action.
But it is not our personal property. It belongs to the working class and is a mighty weapon of the working class. It is the business of all advanced workers to grasp this theory and use it in the struggle to liberate our class. Spreading this theory is an important reason for the existence of this newspaper and future articles will present different aspects of communist theory and its application to the concrete situation in the US.