What is Revolutionary Intercommunalism? by Tom Watts (Used with permission).

WHAT IS REVOLUTIONARY-INTERCOMMUNALISM?

Panther Breakfast Program

 

By Tom “Big Warrior” Watts

 

Revolutionary-Intercommunalism is the theoretical understanding that the world we live in today, has become globalized and the principle contradiction in the world is now between the need of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class to consolidate their global hegemony and the anarchy and chaos they are unleashing by attempting to do so, including the threat of a new world war. Revolutionary-Intercommunalism recognizes that because of this globalization, independent nation states can no longer exist as such, and cannot exist except as temporarily “liberated territory” besieged and undermined by the forces and agents of capitalist-imperialism.
 

Revolutionary-Intercommunalism is illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) and the theory and practice of the original Black Panther Party (BPP) and allied formations in the revolutionary upsurge of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s; and in particular the theoretical contributions of the BPP’s Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton. Comrade Huey summed up that because of automation, the capitalist-imperialists would increasingly be unable to profitably exploit a growing percentage of the proletariat as wage workers, and this growing mass of “unemployables” would eventually become the majority of the population. He further theorized that the lumpen (broken) proletariat would provide the basis for a new revolutionary vanguard that would act as a catalyst upon the whole proletariat and masses of people to inspire them to rise up against and overturn the capitalist-imperialist system.
 

When we apply this analysis on a world scale, we see that large-scale capitalist agriculture has rendered the small-scale production of the peasant class obsolete, and that it is pushing the peasantry off the land and into the proletariat, as they have nothing left but to sell their labor power to survive, while at the same time the employed section of the proletariat is shrinking. Thus, throughout the “Third World” there is a growing mass of “unemployable” and marginalized poor concentrated in and around the urban centers living under dire conditions, or being compelled to emigrate to the “First World” imperialist countries in search of employment, even as industrial jobs are being outsourced to the “Third World” to take advantage of the cheap labor available there. Thus we have a situation of rapidly changing demographics in the “First World” countries.
 

In this declining phase of capitalist-imperialism, where nations are submerged into Empire, the “mother countries” of imperialism are being transformed into “Third World” countries while capitalist-imperialism is “ghettoizing” the dependant countries of the actual “Third World.” In the four decades since Huey Newton announced his Theory of Revolutionary-Intercommunalism in 1970, we have seen all his predictions come to pass, as well as an eightfold increase in the imprisoned population of the U.S., and the rise of the “New Slavery” of the prison-industrial complex. Moreover, wages have remained at or below what they were in 1970 (when adjusted for inflation), though corporate profits have soared to record highs, and the “Safety Net” of social welfare programs has been dramatically cut back and is in danger of being all together eliminated.
 

In effect, there is a “War on the Poor,” within the U.S. and internationally, while the ruling class grabs up the lion’s share of the wealth and power for itself and is driven to monopolize control over fuel, food and water globally and to subordinate every country to their economic and political domination. 

The concentration of wealth and power into ever fewer hands, and the systematic generalization of poverty, (driving masses below the level of bare subsistence), can only be ended and resolved by World Proletarian Socialist Revolution.
 

The absence of a “Socialist Bloc,” as existed previously under the leadership of the Soviet Union, and later People’s China, emboldens U.S.-led imperialism to bully the world and demand complete subordination to it global hegemony. NATO has been aggressively expanded, and of the 190 some countries in the world, more than 150 now have U.S. military bases and instillations and in many cases integrated military commands. Even though Russia and China are now capitalistic and integrated into the world capitalist system, they are viewed as potential rivals by U.S. imperialism, which demands their complete subordination. Instead of a “Socialist Bloc,” we have a formerly-socialist camp of semi-independent national bourgeois dictatorships clinging to the forlorn hope of achieving their own imperial hegemony in a bi-polar world.
 

The proletarians of today truly have no country. In every country, we are the oppressed and exploited – or the “broken,” - who have little connection to the global economy except as poor consumers. What we have is a world to win!
 

Our world is made up of communities in which we live, under the oppression of a growing police state. It is a world where day to day, week to week, and month to month survival is a constant struggle. Even those lucky enough to have jobs live paycheck to paycheck, with bills to pay every month and less to pay them with. We can communicate instantly around the world, (though “Big Brother” is listening), but everywhere we have no voice on the matters that determine our very existence. We share a common culture and economic life, we wear the same clothes and shop for the same things; we can get on a jet plane and fly anywhere in the world in a few hours, but everywhere we are under the same exploitative capitalist empire.
 

Culture and location define our communities. Neighborhoods, regions and countries define one type of community, and ethnicity, religion and life style define another. There is the gay community, the Black community, the biker community, the hip hop community and so forth. We all live in communities!
 

Revolutionary-Intercommunalism promotes solidarity between communities, and a culture of resistance to all oppression. In opposition to the “War on the Poor,” it promotes strategies for survival and mutual assistance. In the broadest sense, it promotes a worldwide people’s war against the capitalist empire and the creation of “liberated zones” and “dual power.” In particular, it promotes the transformation of urban oppressed communities into base areas of cultural, social and political revolution, and the creation of “People’s Power” at the grassroots level. In the prisons and other “Slave Pens of Oppression,” it promotes their transformation into “Schools of Liberation,” as well as a united campaign to defeat the imperialists’ strategy of criminalization and mass incarceration of the poor.
 

The goal of revolutionary-intercommunialism is to overthrow capitalist-imperialism and create a worldwide “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” as a preparatory step towards “World Communism,” classless, stateless, egalitarian society, a world without poverty and war, where everyone has an equal right to access the fruits of our common labor.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

 

Tom Watts is a former 60"s activist and white panther. Today he is an elder advisor to the prison-based United Panther Movement led by the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter. He is an editor/publisher at Rising Sun Press and lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania.