The Revolutionary Task for This Era
You can’t be all things to all people, and you don’t need to be.
We don’t need to be the best ICE defense brigade, but we can join with those that are. We don’t need to be the best encampment defenders, LGBTQ or women’s defense organization, farmworkers advocates, mutual aid deliverers, etc. But we should be working in concert with groups and individuals that are. What do we, as individuals and a collective, need to be clear and best on? As revolutionaries seeing an historic moment, we understand the biggest, most unique impact we can have is to get people of all types to unite with an understanding of what is truly happening, what we’re up against, and the enormous opportunity we face.
“Our unity is dangerous. They see it more than we do.”
For those of you that know the Poor People’s Army, you know we have a history of direct action protest and nonviolent civil disobedience in many creative forms. We have always modeled ourselves after groups like the Black Panther Party and the Zapatistas– in our revolutionary outlook, dedication to study, and willingness to keep community members alive by any means necessary. Over the last 3 decades, our “projects of survival” and human rights work have gained attention from poor and revolutionary movements and governments all over the world. We have been hosted in Ciapas Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine, India, Columbia, Brazil, Cambodia, Thailand, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Spain, the Netherlands, and more.
We’ve weathered many storms as an organization, from police intimidation and surveillance, to foundations cutting our funding, to copycats stealing our history and good name to create their own counterrevolutionary organizations.
Through it all, we’ve maintained leadership among members of the organized poor, with an outlook that we have something unique to offer in terms of survival and collective resistance as we enter darker and darker times. Starting from a small group of mothers who were welfare recipients barely scraping by individually, we banded together to share resources and takeover abandoned government-owned buildings for the community. We grew and grew, from the Kensington Welfare Rights Union to the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. We made waves nationally with a bus tour documenting human rights abuses across the U.S. and massive protests and marches on presidential conventions, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the United Nations. And we did this all while helping almost anyone who came to us with problems getting food, healthcare, housing, or legal assistance. We are not just revolutionaries, we are survivors. As more and more people fall into the ranks of the poor, we have a lot to teach about survival.
We also think the revolutionary Left has gotten so much analysis of today’s conditions wrong. People are not seeing massive changes in our economy that impact how the revolutionary process will unfold, and what strategy and tactics are necessary to create a better world. As the polarization of wealth and poverty becomes clearer to more people, they are open to the idea that a fundamental change in society is necessary. While we continue resistance and protest in many ways, we have swung most of our energy towards advancing a revolutionary theory that masses of people can use to kick the door open to a new world. This is our central focus, bringing this message to the bottom of society and building outward.
And while times are certainly getting darker for so many, we believe we are very close to a turning point that could lead to the most advanced, peaceful era in human history if we just have the right vision and action. Humanity can take advantage of the amazing advances in technology, thrive, and weather the storms of climate catastrophe together only if we take control and ownership of the economy collectively.
If we see that the changing economy of laborless production impacts all people, Black to white, all genders and sexualities, then we need to build unity among all. Our only hope is in unity. Any ideology that seeks to divide us is not useful. Unity will be built on the shared basis of our needs— the basic necessities of life, like food, clothes, housing, healthcare, transportation, communication, etc. If we are revolutionaries that see a changing economy, offering two futures— a new Fascism or a new economic communism— then we need to have people injecting this idea everywhere.
The average Democratic and Republican voters are both feeling the squeeze around these basic necessities of life. Trump will not change that, he will only exacerbate these conditions. The economy is polarizing further between the ultra rich and the ultra poor. And the ruling class—the ultra rich and the government they control, and the corporations they control— is implementing a new Fascism, because they see the future where the mass of us are unemployed because of more and more automation in production. They must keep us under control and divided, and they must maintain their private property even as capitalism as we know it is crumbling. They will target different sections of our class differently, but ultimately all of us are a threat. The cages and cameras and drones and tanks and street vigilantes they use on immigrants and “criminals,” can be later used on any of us. The more homeless there are, the worse they are treated by those in power.
Our unity is dangerous. They see it more than we do.
For those of us that see this reality, the most important, revolutionary action we can take is injecting this analysis in everything we do. This is the task for this era. We don’t need to be the best at everything except bringing these ideas to all people. That only comes with practice, group assessment, and retooling our tactics.
Bringing this message to all people includes immigrant rights groups, LGBTQ, groups, religious groups, prisoners rights groups, Democrats, Republicans, city people, suburban people, rural people. It most certainly includes masses of white people who have ideologies that run counter to our class interests. And we do not unite with them by convincing them to join an immigrants rights group, or an LGBTQ Defense group, or a group damning their white privilege. We unite with them on the basis of needing food, clothes, housing, healthcare. We unite with them on a vision for where society is going and what future they can expect for their children if we do not take over how things are produced and distributed.
“ We need to push our class towards a united framework of revolutionary thought. ”
To be sure, not everyone is willing to hear this. People are more willing to hear this message when they are personally impacted, when the system is discarding them in some way. And the idea will not take hold all at once. We need to plant seeds, stay with people, be patient with people, and watch the idea germinate, watering the seeds and sprouts.
We deal with the people naturally around us first, gather forces, and spread outward. We train others on how to share these ideas and nurture philosophical progress. Then as a group we analyze our class and where we can bring this message more intentionally. We think of areas and segments of the population that are feeling the crushing changes and we go there.
We do not need to be all things to all people. If we are revolutionaries looking to have the most impact in this stage of development, we need to plant these seeds of true class unity wherever we can. We will feel pulled in a million directions wanting to defend everyone. But we cannot abandon this core approach, no matter what happens.
We need to keep coming together to assess, debate, share ideas and analysis, and push our class towards a united framework of revolutionary thought.
