First Published: The Worker for the Bay Area and Salinas Valley, Vol. 4, No. 8, January 20-February 3, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Beginning with its next issue, this newspaper will be going through some important changes. Its name will be changed to the Revolutionary Worker, and the fact that it is the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA will be clearly and proudly announced from its masthead.
Why add “Revolutionary” to the name of our paper? We aim to make it crystal clear where we’re coming from. If we were not for the goal of revolution, then this paper and this Party would have no reason to exist. There are a thousand poverty pimps and petty reformers running around preaching about how the system can be patched up. Who needs one more?
We believe, as Mao Tsetung said that we must “cast-away illusions and prepare for struggle.” This paper will aim to puncture the lies and help peel off the illusions that their system encrusts us with.
We believe that a thousand events every day show the rotteness of this system and the need for revolution. We will be on top of them, laying bare the ugly hand of capitalism behind them all and pointing to the overall reactionary and death-bound character of this system that we need to hasten along to its grave.
Our paper will be controversial. And well it should be. Has drifting in the “mainstream” ever led to any progress? We don’t want to be lolling around in a luke-warm bath of acceptability. If we did we would be accepting the crap of this system on our knees, and giving others no leadership to do anything different. For all these reasons, this paper will be known as the Revolutionary Worker.
And why do we have “Worker” in the name? Because we are not talking about any old vague idea of revolution. We are talking about working class revolution—proletarian revolution, by the class of people who are the enslaved class under this system, forced to sell their ability to work in order to live and who really and truly have nothing to lose but their chains by overthrowing this system. There is only one class, the working class, that can lead the great majority of people in this country in revolution, and can go on and build socialist society and pave the way to communism.
For too long the name “worker” has been shamed and associated with everything from the phony “Life of Reiley” to reactionary jive “hard hat” pro-war demonstrations. It’s time to blast all this muck off the name “worker” and let it shine thru with its real class interests—the cause of revolution.
If in the 1960s the word “student” conjured up the image of revolutionary, then in the 1980s the word “worker” must conjure up the same image, only ten times more powerfully.
Our sights are set very high for the goals of the Revolutionary Worker. Since their establishment as newspapers of the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1975, the Worker papers have made great progress, but far, far more must now be done.
Beginning with its first issue, the Revolutionary Worker will be published in 19 local editions, linked together by a central Workers Press Service (WPS) which is put out under the leadership of the Party. These papers are coming out more frequently. Already nine are coming out every two weeks, and we are aiming for weeklies. How else can we catch red-handed these capitalist thieves who rob us everyday?
Distribution of every one of these local editions has grown in the past months, and our aim is to more quickly sell the Revolutionary Worker on a scale which the old Worker never even approached. This paper should be found inside every class conscious fighter’s house, inside every factory and in the thick of every powerful struggle where the people are beginning to confront their enemy. In short, the Revolutionary Worker will be a social force for revolution, a weapon that will help topple this foul and decadent beast of a system that preys on US.