Fall 1990 Issue number 60 Contents The End of a Stage- The Beginning of a New Stage Late 1989 by Bob Avakian Radical Ruptures, or Yes, Mao More Than Ever Early 1990 by Bob Avaldan ................................ .30 A Final Note: Principles In Carrying Forward the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Preventing Revisionism and the Rise to Power of the (New) Bourgeoisie ........................ .46 Revolution (ISSN 0193-3612) is the propaganda organ of the Central Commillccoflhc Revolutionary Communist Pa*. USA(RCP.USA). Correspondence; We welcome correspondence lo Revolution magazine. All letter* and manuscripts should be clan copy, typed and triple-spaced, and become the properly of Revolution magazine. They should be sent to: RCP Publications P.O. Box 1317. New York NY 10185. Phone 212.642-5365 Subscriptions: In the us.: 514.0014 issues Other countries: $16.5014 issues~surfacemail $24.0014 IssuesÑai mail $20.0014 issuesÑinstitutiona rate Payable by check or money order. Send all subscription orders to: RCP Publications, P.O. Box 348<, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, I1 60654. Editor's Note: This issue of Revolution magazine presents two major talka by Bob Avaklan, Chalrman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. "The End of a Stage-the Beginning of a New Stage" was given in the latter part of 1989 and aent by Chalrman Avaklan to the 1989 meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP. "Radical Ruptures, or, Yes, Mao More Than Ever" was given In early 1990. The brief "A Final Note" was added later by Chairman Avakian in the course of preparing this material for publication. The two talka were edited for publication (Including editing changes made by the author). But In editing we've attempted to preserve the style and tone of the original presentation. The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a Hew Stage by Bob Avukhiil Greetings, Comrades! Let me begin by speaking to the fact that I am unable to attend this meeting. This has its negative aspect for sure, but mainly it must beseen in a positivelight. I deeply regret being unable to attend and to take up the tasks and challenges at hand with you personally, and this is a negative thing. But on the other hand-the positive aspect-the reasons for my not attending have to do with the seriousness with which we are taking up our respon- sibilities and the prospects of revolutionary storms and revolutionary days ahead. For me, and for us, it is not a question of running and hiding with an eye to the past but accelerating our preparation to make leaps with an eye to the future. I once heard a story about the period when Mao was leading the guerrilla warfare in the mountains of China, and over this period peasants in other parts of China would keep asking, "Is he still up there in the moun- tains?" By this they meant, is he still keeping up the fight-is the revolution still alive? Well, using this as a metaphor, we have our own kind of mountains-our own road for preparing to seize power in society as a whole- and we intend to stay on that road. That leads me to the main theme of this talk. If I can be pardoned for doing so, I'll introduce this by speaking in the terms of "popular American culture." "Nice guys finish last" is a widely propagated piece of so-called "popular wisdom" in the U.S.-and this is really veq revealing of the kind of society it is and the kind of society its rulers want-it is a willing self-exposure on their part. But we are out to do something very radical, to overturn all this. We are out for nothing less than to finish first and remain "nice guys" all the way through: to win victory foi the proletariat, not just in the U.S. but worldwide, and bring into being a radically different world with radicallj different people-a world of freely and consciousl; cooperating human beings, without inequality, oppres- certain time a direct, all-out confrontation between the sion and class distinctions-a communist world. rival imperialist blocs. But we should not lower our guard Tb put this in terms of one of our often-repeated and flip to theother side. ienorineorunderestimatinethe very real, deep-going andstill intense contradictions be- tween the imperialists and the continuing danger of "In the final analysis, as Engels once expressed it, world war. It is true that recent times have witnessed the proletariat must win its emancipation on the dramatic changes in what has been the Soviet bloc as well battlefield. But there is not only the question of as the emergence of some imperialist states to more winning in this sense but of howwewin in thelargest prominent positions (for example Japan and a Germany sense. One of the significant if perhaps subtle and moving toward reunification), and there is the possibility often little-noticed ways in which the enemy, even of further significant shifts among the imperialists. But, in defeat, seeks to exact revenge on the revolution with all this, the interimperialist contradiction remains and sow the seed of its future undoing is in what he very real and profound-there still remains the real pos- would force the revolutionaries to become in order sibility that this contradiction could erupt into all-out to defeat him. It will come to this: we will have to war. And it remains true that the most likely alignment in face him in the trenches and defeat him amidst such a war would be two blocs facing off against each terrible destruction but we must not in the process other with the U.S. heading one bloc and the Soviet annihilate the fundamental difference between the Union heading the other. enemy and ourselves. Here the example of Marx is I would also like to stress that it is very important to illuminating: he repeatedly fought at close quarters have a correct attitude toward one's mistakes. And in this with the ideologists and apologists of the bour- regard I would like to tell a little story that I heard about geoisie but he never fought them on their terms or when W.E.B. Du Bois was in China and had a meeting with their outlook; with Marx his method is as with Mao. Apparently in the course of this discussion, exhilaratingas his goal is inspiring. We must beable which ranged rather broadly, Du Bois at one point said, to maintain our firmness of principles but at the looking back over his whole life's work, "Well, it looks same time our flexibility, our materialism and our like all that I ever did was make one mistake after dialectics, our realism and our romanticism, our another." And apparently at this point Mao sort of spit solemn sense of purpose and our sense of humor." out theword "mistakes" in disgust and looked at Du Bois (Harvest, p. 152) and said, "But at least you never made the mistake of eivine uv. We ourselves have made all kinds of mistakes Before turning to the main points of this talk, I want throughathe history of what we've done, but we too have to touch briefly on the "end of the '80s" point. This will never made the mistake of giving up, and that's the im- only be avery short summary, because you comrades will portant thing." be discussing a paper written on this question and in that Besides, we are not at all "disappointed" at the discussion you will be going into this in some depth. Here prospect that world war may not come right away. Our what I want to speak to is what our orientation must be impatience has not been for world war but for advancing in coming to grips with some significant shifts in world the world revolution! contradictions, the interimperialist contradiction in par- This point of basic orientation is especially important ticular. I am referring to the fact that things did not work now, because the most important thing about the way out as we had predicted through the'&, in terms of the world contradictions are expressing themselves now is questionofworldwarand therelationshipbetweenworld the positive aspect-the "opening" (a "window of war and the advance of the world revolution-in par- heightened opportunity," to use one of the other side's ticularour analysis that, in the time frameof the'&, only phrases) this is providing us-internationally and within a leap in the world revolution could prevent world war. the U.S. itself. It is to our advantage that the inter- Itisveryimportant thatwemaintainacorrectperspec- imperialist contradiction and with it the immediate live on this. First of all, we were very correct in stressing danger of world war and nuclear devastation have been the real and heightening danger of world war. Second, it temporarily and partially mitigated at the same time as is true that things did not work out the way we an- mass movements and struggles, including revolutionary ticipated, and there have been the shifts in world con- movements and armed struggles, are rocking the old tradictions-and in particular the interimperialist con- order. East and West; and the guardians of the old order tradiction-that have resulted in a temporary and partial are confronting increasingly explosive problems in trying mitigation of this contradiction and have put off for a to keep the lid on and keep the masses down. In other words, through the '80s we may not have gotten the con- the screws of repression.