There are not guarantees. No one can predict what will happen once the system begins to break down and the various opportunist elements make their move. We may end up with a period of fascism. If the left does not win, in a post US period, then we most certainly will have some type of fascist state for a pure theocracy. That may seem the worst case scenario but it isn’t. The worst that can happen is nothing.
“Change it had to come,
We knew it all along,” – The Who “Won’t get fooled again.” Even in this reactionary song, that tells us the old boss will be just like the new boss, there is this admission that change could not be stopped.
So it is the left’s job to push for a left revolution and at least try to save this country. The status quo just isn’t an option.
We already have the Kasama Project, which has a large following, and the Revolutionary Communist Party may get a chance to test some of its theories by its loyal followers. There are other revolutionary groups, some Trotskyist and we may end up forming alliances with such people. But will we be ready for an actual revolutionary situation in 10 years or even 20? We may or may not be. It is hard to imagine a left in the US big enough to have any affect on the changes that are coming this way. But we have to believe something and many of us need goals and objectives or we will all just be victims of a new class of warlords. This is what usually follows when a system collapses.
A lot of theoretical work needs to be done yet to have a viable left in the US. Most Americans are sadly ignorant of what socialism or communism means. That won’t magically change with a collapse of the system. But new opportunities may rise up.
In the end, there is always the possibility that the status quo will somehow revitalize itself and survive the next century. Again, nothing can be ruled out when trying to guess the future. It is important to know who we are and what we believe in. We can learn from other revolutions, but there has never been a communist revolution in a modern industrialized nation. The closest we came to was France in the 1968 student revolts.
One thing leftist should do is own legal firearms and learn to use them. Not for making a people’s war, or focoism, or anarchist type assassinations, but for simple protection. The right already has and knows how to use firearms. There is nothing illegal about that. However there are plenty of examples of communist parties getting gunned down and wiped out by other past governments where paramilitary groups went after unarmed communists. It is simple defence, which today is legal and if it is made illegal, we will know the US has disintegrated into fascism. There have been two known times when the US almost declared martial law-- Once under Abraham Lincoln, the other under Richard Nixon.
We may learn more from the Italian experience right now than we do from Nepal. Nepal is a third world country and the US is a main imperialist power. We have to develop our own road based on our own conditions.
None of us have all the answers. But it’s best not to be clueless.
Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A Changin' (Unreleased 1976)
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