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.
.jpeg)
