Published: The Workers’ Advocate, Vol. 2, No. 5, May 1970.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The U.S. monopoly capitalist ruling class took another seven-league toward a fascist police state when their Ohio National Guard brutally slaughtered four Kent State University students and wounded 10 others May 4. These students were attacked because they stood up militantly against Nixon’s blatant imperialist aggression in Cambodia and against fascist persecution of political groups such as the Black Panthers.
As if to boast to the world that the Kent massacre was no accident, six Black working people in Georgia and two Black students in Mississippi were also slaughtered by military and police forces while taking part in protests in the following weeks. Such fascist repression has long been practiced against Black people and other oppressed peoples in the United States and is now being extended to the whole American people. Nixon’s use of federal troops against the striking postal workers and the attempted repression of the truck drivers’ strike by the Ohio National Guard are simply further examples of the trend which is fast becoming dominant in the U.S.: violent denial of the people’s fundamental democratic right to speak, organize and rebel against reactionaries. This trend is the shifting of the U.S. big bourgeoisie toward open fascist dictatorship as it finds itself unable to govern an increasingly revolutionary people by the partially democratic means.
The basic cause of this deep crisis is internal to the United States. It is the inability of the big bourgeoisie to extort enough profits from the American working class to satisfy its greed, and the vigorous growth of a revolutionary mass movement among all sections of the oppressed people which is shaking the very foundations of imperialist rule. The secondary cause of this crisis is external. It is the unprecedented rise of anti-imperialist and socialist revolution in the world today, which has seriously shaken the dominant position (and the super-profits) held by the U.S. monopoly capitalists until recently. As Chairman Mao says in his most recent statement, “revolution is the main trend in the world today.” Counter-revolution, led by the U.S. reactionaries, is only a counter-current and is heading for total collapse.
This fascist super-reaction to the struggles of the masses only reflects the inner weakness of the monopoly capitalists. Chairman Mao also said in his recent statement; “United States imperialism, which looks like a huge monster, is in essence a paper tiger, now in the throes of its deathbed struggle. In the world today, who actually fears whom? It is not the Vietnamese people, the Laotian people, the Cambodian people, the Palestinian people, the Arab people or the people of other countries who fear United States imperialism! It is United States that fears the people of the world. It becomes panic-stricken at the mere rustle of leaves in the wind.”
The American working class and people have nothing to mourn about in this loss of strength, despite the propaganda of the reactionaries, for it only represents the decline of our enemies and the rise of our friends. Our prospects for hanging these arch-criminal parasites have never been brighter! They are like a terrified rat running across the street while crowds of people yell “Beat it! Throw a stone at it!”
The working class describes the world only in order to change it. The task facing the American working class, oppressed national minorities, progressive sections of the petty bourgeoisie (middle class) and all democratic and anti-fascist people is not to sit around and discuss what is fascism but instead to decide how to move the struggle against fascism to a higher level and actively COMBAT THIS GROWING FASCISM!
The big bourgeoisie is using “any fascist means necessary” to repress the working class and people. These include
1) Direct violent repression of the revolutionary initiative of the masses, including not only police and military attacks but also the organization of fascist gangs, the increase of police and FBI surveillance and the anti-democratic atmosphere which results by that, if one speaks out he will be labeled, fired or attacked.
2) Indirect repression if the revolutionary initiative of the masses by constant propaganda laying the basis in public opinion for fascist dictatorship. The constant theme of this propaganda, is that the working and oppressed people themselves are to blame for their misery and that they should turn against each other and leave the criminal rule of the imperialists untouched.
Indirect repression of the people gives rise to communist propaganda teams which prepare public opinion for the elimination of monopoly capitalism by applying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to the concrete conditions of the United States in order to sum up the people’s struggles and give guidelines to raise the movement to a higher level. Mao Tsetung Thought is the ideology of the working class and it opposes all the the decaying, self-seeking ideology of the bourgeoisie.
Direct repression of the people gives rise to armed revolutionary committees which will eliminate the armed fascist units. The very essence of fascism is the violent denial of the people’s democratic right to organize and the people will take up arms in revolutionary struggle for the right to organize. IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE THE WORKING AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE WILL BE FORCED TO CARRY OUT THE ARMED OVERTHROW OF THE MONOPOLY CAPITALIST CIASS AND ITS STATE MACHINERY. THUS THE ANTI-FASCIST STRUGGLE IS A REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AND FASCISM CANNOT BE DEFEATED EXCEPT BY REVOLUTION.
Thus the communists will develop the revolutionary initiative of the masses to remove once and for all the source of their oppression.
The American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) calls on all progressive and anti-fascist people to join the united front to overthrow fascism and to carry out the following four guidelines:
1) Do widespread propaganda for Mao Tsetung Thought, the right to rebel against reactionaries and for proletarian armed revolution. This ideological work is like tilling the soil for revolution. It is laying the basis for a new Marxist-Leninist communist party, devoted to Mao Tsetung-Thought, which will organize and lead the revolutionary movement. The organization of the party, which has already begun, is like planting the seeds for revolution.
2) Develop mass democratic, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist struggles under the slogans: No investigation, no right to speak! No sophistry! No rhetoric!
The agents of the bourgeoisie in the people’ s ranks want to stop development of ideas and of the revolutionary initiative of the masses by turning everything into a matter of discussion, of ’defining’ the world and ’convincing’ the masses to make revolution. These detached individuals are against the proletarian method of work which demands SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS TO SERVE PEOPLE. They want to create expert roles for themselves on the backs of the people and can only be exposed in the fire of mass democratic discussion and struggle. In many places, the dividing line between a revolutionary and a counter-revolutionary is whether or not you believe that reality is a matter of definition. The working class knows that reality is not a matter of definition and will oppose anyone who tries to subvert the struggle.
3) Actively combat Trotskyism, revisionism or any other form of opportunism.
The recent upsurge in mass struggle has also seen an upsurge in opportunist misleadership in the people’s ranks, all geared to preventing the development of revolutionary ideas and initiative and to turning the struggles down harmless reformist paths. In the name of winning something ’tangible’ these slimy snakes actively oppose Ideological struggle over how best to make revolution arid put forward all the bogus bourgeois theories that the masses are ignorant, greedy, racist and anti-communist. These servants are the imperialists’ best friends. There can be no unity with them; they must be rooted out and annihilated politically before the working class can seize leadership of its own struggle.
4) Hold meetings to sum up experience in the course of actual struggle and develop guidelines to move forward.
The goal of the reactionaries of every stripe is to destroy the right of the working class and people to organize under the banner of Mao Tsetung Thought, the only revolutionary Ideology. It is all right with them if the masses organize under any other banner for this assures that the masses will not make revolution. However, the masses are everywhere organizing under the. banner of Mao Tsetung Thought and will vigorously defend their right to do so openly and to develop revolutionary Ideas through mass democratic discussion. To abandon the struggle for the right to organize openly under the red flag is to give up this right to the fascists who will definitely organize under the swastika. On the other hand, to fall to take precautions and develop secret work too would also be a mistake.
To sum up, successful struggle against fascism means to PUT MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT IN COMMAND OF EVERYTHING and to DEVELOP THE REVOLUTIONARY INITIATIVE OF THE MASSES. It means, as Chairman Mao writers, “We must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the party.” Without these, we cannot have the spirit of daring to struggle, daring to win. With these principles in command we can definitely overcome every obstacle and can organize the broad masses for the successful overthrow of U.S. monopoly capital and its coming fascist state.
COMBAT THIS GROWING FASCISM!
DEATH TO U.S. MONOPOLY CAPITAL!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT!
LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO! A LONG, LONG LIFE TO CHAIRMAN MAO!