Issued and Distributed: January 5, 1970.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Wednesday, January 7, 2:00 PM, Student Union (2nd floor lounge) Rhode Island College, Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Providence
The main enemy of the world’s people, including the American people, is U.S. imperialism. The working and oppressed people of the world have organized to smash U.S. imperialism and bring an end to its genocidal wars, fascist murders (such as the recent murders of civilians at My-Lai, Fred Hampton in Chicago), and oppressive culture. National Liberation wars are being fought against U.S. imperialism throughout the world. On campuses throughout the U.S., disgust with imperialist institutions and culture is manifested in demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, etc. In Rhode Island College, for instance, there has been unsystematic protest: various small demonstrations, boycotts, student government foolishness, and the emergence of a misled, unfocused unit of SDS.
There are two lines operating in the world today, a pro-imperialist line and an anti-imperialist line. Of the two, the anti-imperialist progressive line recognizes investigation and study of students’ own experiences using Mao Tsetung Thought to deal with problems. The pro-imperialist bourgeois line puts forward self-cultivation, “learning all about Mao” before doing any political work; it conceals from the people its misuse of progressive ideology; it refuses to use clear political guidelines. A genuinely anti-imperialist student movement, operates in an open, honest, straight-forward manner. No investigation; no right to speak, No slander of opponents. No trivia or subjectivity permitted. The world is not a matter of opinion.
Rejecting the practices of student “reformers” and so-called “revolutionaries” (who have treated the necessity for change as an extra-curricular activity), progressive students are now creating a movement to combat U.S. imperialism. This developing progressive movement has been vigorously defended by masses of students and faculty in the curriculum committee hearings at R.I.C., and elsewhere.
We reject as bankrupt the so-called student government, fraternities, SDS, social service organizations, anarchistic “do-your-own-thing” types, and moralizing liberals. We put forward the line of a genuinely anti-imperialist student movement:
To-deal with experiences of students in a scientific, honest manner;
To struggle against anti-scientific, anti-people bourgeois education;
To bring Mao Tsetung Thought to the masses of workers and other oppressed people;
To support the world-wide National Liberation struggles and the Afro-American struggle.
The primary form of struggle at this time is struggle in the ideological sphere. To help people prepare for discussion of this announcement, we print the following quotations:
The creation and advocacy of revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role in those times of which Lenin said ’Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.’ When a task, no matter which, has to be performed, but there is as yet no guiding line, method, plan or policy, the principal and decisive thing is to decide on a guiding line, method, plan or policy. When the superstructure (politics, culture, etc.) obstructs the development of the economic base, political and cultural changes become principal and decisive. (Mao Tsetung, On Contradiction)
The birth and deepening of any great revolutionary movement is inevitably preceded by a gigantic struggle in the ideological field and heralded by a great ideological revolution. (Renmin Ribao, June 8, 1966)