{"id":784,"date":"2019-09-25T14:27:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T12:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=784"},"modified":"2019-12-06T21:08:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T19:08:39","slug":"guerrilla-struggle-and-the-workers-movement","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=784","title":{"rendered":"Guerrilla Struggle and the Workers’ Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No. 5 (January 1982)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by D. Sikhakhane & R. Monroe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the\nfirst in a series of articles on armed struggle. In order to fully understand\nthis question, it is necessary to examine guerrilla war as it developed in the\nrevolutionary upheavals in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Further articles\nwill analyse guerrilla struggle and the use of armed force in the South African\nrevolution.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The period\nfollowing the Second World War has been one of unprecedented turbulence in the\ncolonial and underdeveloped countries with continual revolutionary uprisings\nagainst national oppression and imperialist domination. In many of the\ncountries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, the strategy of guerrilla war in\nthe countryside and even urban guerillaism, has been adopted by leaders of the\nstruggling masses. Guerrilla struggle has been hailed as the only way towards\nvictory over the oppressor, and a means by which socialism could be achieved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the\nworking class, moving into struggle in all parts of the former colonial world,\nencounters many organisations and leaders which put forward these ideas. In\nSouth Africa guerrilla struggle is the official policy of the ANC and other\norganisations. For this reason it is important for the workers, the youth and\nall revolutionaries to understand clearly what this method of struggle has to\noffer the working class, and when and where it can further the struggle against\nthe capitalist enemy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even during the\nlong post-war boom in the advanced countries, the continued grip of capitalism\nover the ‘Third World’ has meant one uninterrupted nightmare for the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed the\nexplosive struggles of the peoples of the underdeveloped countries forced\nimperialism to retreat from direct political-military domination. The old\ncolonial empires, despite desperate and often barbarous measures by world\ncapitalism, disintegrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The achievement\nof political independence in the countries subjected to colonial rule has been\nan irreversible step forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But during the\nboom period of 1950-1974, despite political independence, the economic\nstranglehold of capitalism over most of the ‘Third World’ \u2013 over the means of\nproduction as well as trade \u2013 tightened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monopoly capital\nnow completely dominated the capitalist world. This meant in turn that the\ncapitalist class (national bourgeoisie) of the underdeveloped countries was feeble\nand emaciated, having entered the scene far too late to play any positive role\nin the development of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dependent and\nfragmented, these economies cannot hope on a capitalist basis to challenge the\ndazzling industrial development of the Western powers. Most have continued to\nserve in their colonial role of exporting agricultural and mineral raw\nmaterials to the advanced industrial countries, and providing markets for the\nproducts of Western capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the period\nsince the Second World War, the prices of their products have generally fallen\nin relation to the prices they must pay for manufactured imports. The upswing\nin the advanced capitalist countries was based in part on the\nsuper-exploitation of the masses in the former colonies through these unequal\nterms of trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process has\ndrained these countries of wealth and submerged them hopelessly in debt.\nSeeking to expand cash-crop exports, they have become net importers even of\nbasic foodstuffs from the advanced capitalist world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Production has\nbecome more and more dominated by the narrow profiteering interests of the\nmultinational monopolies, taking advantage of cheap labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some ‘Third\nWorld’ countries there has been a certain growth of industry, based on the\n‘leavings’ of the world economic upswing. But this has fuelled the demand for\nimports of machinery, resulting in ever-increasing borrowing from the Western\nbanks, and loading the economies with crippling interest repayments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land\nquestion in general has remained unsolved. Most agricultural land has remained\nin the hands of reactionary landlord classes. The peasant masses, at the mercy\nof the capitalist market, unable to compete with large-scale modern agriculture\nand increasingly dependent on capitalist industry and bankers for their\nimplements etc., have been trampled deeper into poverty and debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalist rule\nhas generally consolidated the age-old oppression of the peasantry by the\nlandowners. The capitalist class, weak and lacking a social basis, could maintain\nitself only by entering into political alliances with the landowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this\natmosphere, no basis existed for stable political democracy. Democracy opens\nthe way for the masses to press for social reforms, for which there is no lasting\nroom on a capitalist basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even where the\nregimes are nominally ‘democratic’, that democracy cloaks a hell of\nexploitation and poverty, enforced at various times by ‘states of emergency’\nand martial law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the\ncapitalist countries of Latin America and Asia are ruled by dictatorships,\ncompletely suppressing the trade unions and workers’ parties. They are marked\nby terror, torture and massacre. Most of the independent states in Africa have\nalso become one-party regimes or military governments, not allowing any organised\nopposition whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These regimes\nare weak and unstable. Coups are followed by counter-coups. Military\ngovernments give way to civilian rule and then military government again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unable on a\ncapitalist basis to solve any of the problems, they cannot indefinitely hold\nback the relentless pressure of the masses. Hence they balance between the\npressures of imperialism on the one hand, and that of the workers and peasants\non the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state,\nserving the interests of capitalism, becomes partly elevated above the masses\nlocked in struggle, repressing the masses for the benefit of the capitalists\nand landlords, but enforcing reforms at the capitalists’ expense when the\nstruggle of the masses becomes threatening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only in\nexceptional and temporary circumstances has there been any advance in the\nliving standards of the colonial workers and peasants. Conditions of life for\nthe overwhelming majority of the people of the capitalist ‘Third World’ have\nnot only dropped further and further behind those of the advanced capitalist\ncountries, but have become absolutely worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incomes, the\nprospect of secure jobs and health have all deteriorated. Poverty, squalor and\ndisease have increased to the proportions of mass starvation and epidemics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more,\nthese conditions have forced the masses to move. There is no way forward on the\nbasis of capitalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience\nof the Russian Revolution of 1917 confirmed the fact \u2013 brilliantly anticipated\nby Trotsky in the theory of the permanent revolution \u2013 that the capitalist\nclass of an underdeveloped country is incapable of carrying through the tasks\nof a bourgeois-democratic revolution. It can solve none of the inherited\nproblems of poverty, semi-feudal structures, landlessness, imperialist\ndomination, arbitrary tribal and national divisions, and the absence of mass\nmarkets, because it is tied to the imperialists and the landlords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under these\ncircumstances the task of taking power and carrying through the tasks of the\nbourgeois-democratic revolution falls on the shoulders of the working class.\nBut the working class, leading the peasantry and the majority of the nation,\ncannot stop at the accomplishment of these tasks. It will struggle to pass on\nto the socialist tasks \u2013 the expropriation of capitalism, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process was\nset in motion in the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the working class took\npower and established its own democratic state. But the socialist tasks cannot be\ncompleted within any single country, especially an underdeveloped country. The\nrevolution needed to spread to the more advanced capitalist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this had\nhappened, world history would have been different. If the working class in\nWestern Europe had taken power at this time, it would have ignited the hot\nflame of social revolution throughout the colonial world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in fact,\nopportunities for carrying through the social revolution in Europe in 1917-1923\nwere missed, and the Russian Revolution remained isolated. Under these\nconditions, a privileged bureaucratic caste was able to usurp power in the\nSoviet Union, crushing workers’ democracy and raising itself into the sole\ncommanding stratum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Delay<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that\nremained of the October Revolution was the abolition of capitalism and\nlandlordism, together with a plan of production, in a bureaucratically\ndistorted form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again after the\nSecond World War huge revolutionary possibilities opened up for the working\nclass in both Western and Eastern Europe. But the socialist revolution in the\nmajor capitalist countries, the decisive areas of the world, was derailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the\nnational awakenings and revolutions in the underdeveloped countries took place\nunder unfavourable international conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defeat of the social revolution in the West, and\nits distortion in Eastern Europe, was a direct result of the policies of the\nSoviet bureaucracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Western\nEurope the workers looked to the Communist parties for a revolutionary lead,\nbecause of the role played by Russia against Nazi Germany and the activity of\nCommunists in the underground resistance against fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Soviet\nbureaucracy, needing to maintain control over the Soviet working class, had\neverything to lose from the unleashing of the workers’ revolution\ninternationally. Stalin, at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, agreed secretly\nwith the Western leaders that Western Europe should remain in the hands of\nimperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The treacherous\npolicies of Stalinism ensured that the socialist revolution in the West was\ndelayed for a whole historical period. This provided the political basis on\nwhich capitalism, severely weakened by the war, was saved. A new era of\ncapitalist growth was ushered in for all the advanced countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalists,\nwith expanding new resources, could offer concessions in response to\nworking-class pressure. The Stalinist and reformist leaders came to echo the\nclaims of the capitalists that crisis and class conflict were things of the\npast. They lulled themselves with the belief in an unending future of gradual\nreform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Distorted revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delay in the European revolution meant that no\ngenuinely socialist lead and no industrial basis was provided for the workers\nand peasants in the underdeveloped countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the masses\nin the ‘Third World’ could not wait until the revolutionary struggle of the\nworking class in the advanced countries was resumed. Their problems were too\ncrushing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the\ncolonial masses have hurled themselves forward in a whole series of\nepoch-making struggles that have snapped the chain of world capitalism at one\nlink after another: China, Cuba, Burma, Syria, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Mozambique,\nAngola etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases\nthe immediate cause of the break with capitalism was a military coup, resting\non the support of the peasantry. In many other cases the driving force has been\na peasant army mobilised in protracted rural guerrilla warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese\nRevolution of 1944-1949, which brought Mao’s Red Army to power, was the first\nof these revolutions. Removing nearly one quarter of the world’s people from\nthe grip of landlordism and capitalism, its historical importance is surpassed\nonly by the Russian Revolution itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese\nRevolution shifted the world balance of forces against imperialism and has\nsecured the transformation of China, in 30 years, from a broken and weak\nsemi-colony into a mighty power. It is only necessary to compare China with\nIndia today to see the enormous advantages for the masses resulting from the\nnationalisation and planning of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, in contrast\nto the Russian Revolution, where the working class took power and later lost it\nto the Stalinist bureaucracy, workers’\ncontrol over society and the state never existed in China.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In China, the\nworkers’ state was based from the outset on the rule of a bureaucratic caste,\nraised above the workers and peasants, its aims restricted to the national\ndevelopment of China alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the\ninevitable consequence of a revolution based on the peasantry and led by the\nmiddle class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not for nothing\ndoes Marxism explain that the socialist revolution and the building of\nsocialism is the task of the working class. This is not accidental, but because\nthe specific role in production<\/strong> of\nthe working class gives it a specific\ncapacity and consciousness<\/strong> possessed by no other class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the\nworking class alone, organised by the organisation of industry, which has the\nsocial position and can develop the collective consciousness to create a\nplanned economy and a democratic workers’ state, without bureaucracy or\nprivileged strata. Only on the basis of workers’ democracy can the way to\ngenuine socialism be opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese\nRevolution was not based on the mobilisation of the working class under a\nMarxist leadership, struggling for workers’ democracy and socialism. It was\nrooted in the heroic struggles of the peasantry against landlordism, and led by\nmiddle-class elements appalled by the oppression and suffering of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general this\nhas also been true of the social revolutions in other underdeveloped countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often even more\nthan the working class, the peasantry suffers the most horrendous oppression\nunder capitalism, and struggles fiercely against the landlords and the state.\nWhy then cannot the peasantry carry through a revolution which leads to\nsocialism in the same way as the working class? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peasantry\napproaches social questions from the standpoint of a class of individuals<\/strong> who are not bound together\nin production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a class\nscattered in the countryside, isolated from the centres of industry, the\npeasantry cannot act collectively as a democratic organising force in\nproduction. The peasantry tend to follow the class or stratum which commands\npower in the towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the\nworking class strives to socialise the property taken away from the exploiters,\nthe tendency of peasants is rather to divide it among themselves. The\nadvantages of collectivisation do not occur naturally to them, but must usually\nbe demonstrated by others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the working\nclass must strive to solve problems on a national and international scale, the\npeasantry experiences problems on a local scale and is sceptical of national\nplanning which appears to curtail its independence. Because of the Chinese\nRevolution and the similar revolutions which followed, some intellectuals have\nconcluded that the peasantry now has the historical role of creating socialism,\nthrough the means of a people’s guerrilla war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact it was\nno part of Mao’s conscious programme to abolish capitalism. Prior to the\nrevolution, the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed that a “new\ndemocracy” and “fifty years of national capitalism” lay ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the objective conditions<\/strong> which enabled the\nmiddle-class leaders of the Chinese Revolution to take power, and left them no\nalternative but to take industry into state ownership, turning China onto the\nroad of modern development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese\ncapitalists, linked to the landlords, were too bankrupt and decrepit to develop\nthe forces of production. Chiang Kai-Shek, the bourgeois leader, saw his army\nof peasants in uniform disintegrate as the soldiers, offered land by Mao,\nflocked over to the side of the revolution. The lesson was clear: to gain land,\nthe peasantry needed to rise up against the capitalist-landlord regime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperialism,\nexhausted by the Second World War, was unable to come to the assistance of the\nChinese ruling class. The Soviet bureaucracy, emerging strengthened from the\nwar, provided Mao with material aid as well as the model of a bureaucratic\nworkers’ state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Mao’s\nvictory led to the abolition of capitalism, at the same time it crushed the independent movement of the Chinese\nworking class against the capitalists.<\/strong> So far was Mao from the example of\nthe Russian Revolution that on entering Shanghai and other cities, he shot down\nworkers who had seized their factories and welcomed him with red flags. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Cuba<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally\nsimilar processes took place in Cuba in the late 1950s. The guerrilla army\ngathered together by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara consisted of peasants,\nex-workers, and the unemployed. It based itself on a bourgeois-democratic\nprogramme for the removal of the Batista dictatorship with no suggestion of\nabolishing capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only real\nparticipation of the workers in the struggle was in the last stages when a\ngeneral strike was called in support of Castro’s march on Havana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fall of\nHavana meant the collapse of Batista’s hated police state. Power fell into the\nhands of Castro at the head of the guerrillas. But the abolition of capitalism\nand landlordism did not take place as the result of a conscious plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taxes were\nimposed on the capitalists by Castro to raise money for basic reforms. American\nimperialism, controlling nine-tenths of the economy, violently objected and\nimposed a blockade on Cuba in retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a reprisal\nfor the blockade, the Cubans seized the American assets. Thus nine-tenths of\nthe economy fell into the hands of the state. They then proceeded to\nnationalise the remaining tenth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the economic<\/strong> foundations of a workers’\nstate came into existence but with power in the hands of the former guerrilla\nleadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These military\nleaderships rapidly consolidated themselves into bureaucratic regimes, modelled\non the ‘socialist’ bureaucracy in Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting out\nfrom conditions of indescribable economic destitution, the new regimes were\nable to organise considerable economic progress because of the superiority of a\nplanned economy compared with decaying capitalism. Starvation could be\nabolished, schools built for all and life expectancy increased. This provided\nthem with massive support among the working population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the severe constraints on production within a single, underdeveloped\ncountry, governed by the world market, ruled out the all-round development of\nindustry and agriculture to create the conditions of material abundance that\ncould form the foundations of socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As was shown in\nRussia after 1923, even a healthy workers’ state, particularly in a backward\ncountry, will degenerate unless the social revolution spreads to other advanced\ncountries. In conditions of generalised poverty and shortages, privileged\nelites will always arise and graft themselves onto the backs of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trotsky\npointed out, when bread queues form, there will have to be officials to\ndistribute the bread and policemen to keep the queue in order! And it is easy\nto see who will help themselves first \u2013 and most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like their\ncounterparts in the underdeveloped capitalist countries, the bureaucratic\nregimes in the countries where capitalism was overthrown could only maintain\nthemselves by balancing between the classes. Unable in the long term to satisfy\nall the demands of the workers, peasants and middle classes, they are forced to\nmaintain rigid political control. Reforms are launched in response to pressure\nfrom the masses; at the same time the regimes remain vulnerable to the\npressures of capitalism and imperialism internationally and are forced to adapt\nto these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, for the working class in the underdeveloped\ncountries, the task to broaden their struggle internationally is a central part\nof the struggle to solve their daily problems.<\/strong> Only\nwhen the commanding heights of the world economy have been brought under\nworkers rule can the crushing burdens of imperialist super-exploitation and underdevelopment\nin Asia, Africa and Latin America be altogether removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian and\nlater the Chinese bureaucracies have supported national liberation struggles\nbut, in the interests of ‘detente’ with imperialism, have opposed all efforts\nto organise the working masses consciously for the overthrow of capitalism.\nTheir programs are identical: first ‘national democracy’ on a capitalist basis,\nwhile the struggle for socialism is relegated to the distant future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where peasant\nstruggles have led to the collapse of rotten capitalist-landlord regimes, the\nRussian and Chinese bureaucracies have been faced with an accomplished fact. In\nthese countries they have supported the establishment of bureaucratic regime\nthat would confine themselves to building ‘socialism’ within their own borders,\nappealing neither to the workers of the West, nor of Russia and China\nthemselves, to struggle for workers’ democracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Spread<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar\nobjective conditions have led to the defeat of capitalism through drawn-out guerrilla\nstruggles in other countries of the underdeveloped world, and the rise of\ndeformed workers’ states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Vietnam, all\nthe barbarity of French and US imperialism could not prop up the decrepit\ncapitalist class. First in North Vietnam (after 1954) and then in the South\n(after 1975), the leadership of the victorious guerrilla movement had no option\nbut to take over the economy from the fleeing capitalists. (By this stage the guerrilla\nwar had escalated into virtually a full-scale conventional war.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mozambique\nand Angola the guerrilla struggle contributed to the weakening of Portuguese\ncapitalism. This resulted in the Portuguese revolution in 1974 which, in turn,\nplaced power in the colonies in the hands of the guerrilla leaderships. Faced\nwith the flight of the capitalist class, they also were obliged to take\nproduction into the hands of the state and initiate economic planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other\ncountries, similar deformed workers’ states have come into existence not as a\nresult of guerrilla warfare, but of a crisis within the existing state machine.\nIn Ethiopia, sections of the officer caste staged a coup to replace the\ndegenerate feudal absolutism of Haile Selassie by a constitutional monarchy.\nWhat compelled them to act was a famine imposing devastating suffering on the\nmasses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, with the\ncollapse of the monarchy, the feebleness and rottenness of the capitalist class\n\u2013 its inability to take the country forward \u2013 was obvious. It could not command\nthe state or impose its stamp upon society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling the\nintense pressures of the peasants and workers beneath them, and only a vacuum\nabove, the officers had no alternative but to base themselves on the support of\nthe masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initiating a\nprogramme of land reform, they won the support of the peasants, expropriated\nthe landlords, and took the remainder of the economy under state control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaders of guerrilla\narmies often claim that ‘victory is certain’. The bankruptcy of capitalism in\nthe underdeveloped world, particularly in its most backward areas, continues to\ncreate conditions in which guerrilla struggles based on the peasantry can\nresult in a distorted social revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these\nvictories are not automatic. With a more developed base of capitalist\nproduction, the capitalist class may not disintegrate completely under the\npressure of the guerrilla war. They may crush the guerrilla struggle (as was\nthe fate of Che Guevara’s attempt to wage guerrilla war in Bolivia) or, where\ndeadlock is reached, may force the guerrilla leaders to compromise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Algeria and\nZimbabwe, for instance, guerrilla struggle has resulted, not in the overthrow\nof the capitalist class, but in the former guerrilla leadership forming a\ngovernment with the state machine and property of the capitalist class largely\nintact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Way forward<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The examples of\nthe distorted social revolutions in China, Cuba etc. have been attractive to\nthe middle class because they pose no threat to its privilege. The middle class\nin those countries became transformed into a privileged bureaucracy standing\nover and above the mass of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that these\nstates have in common with workers’ democracy is state ownership of the means\nof production and economic planning. On this basis they can develop the\nproductive forces at a pace impossible on their former capitalist basis, and\ncan begin to feed, clothe, house and raise the educational and cultural level\nof the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These gains by\nthe masses provide the historical justification of the colonial revolution,\nhowever distorted in its form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, starting\nfrom backwardness, developing production in the limited framework of a single\ncountry, the advances are tiny in comparison with what would be achieved on the\nbasis of the socialist transformation of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today conditions\nfor the world socialist revolution are once again re-emerging. World capitalism\nhas entered a new period of prolonged death agony, which is arousing the\nworking class of Western Europe, the US and Japan into mighty struggles which\nwill develop over the next 10-15 years towards revolutionary situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Russia and\nthe other developed Stalinist countries, the bureaucratic regimes have turned\ninto an absolute fetter on the development of production. As in Poland, the\nworkers of these countries will again and again be impelled to rise up in an\neffort to overthrow the bureaucracy and establish workers’ democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A single\nrevolutionary victory in a developed, industrialised country would spread like\na bush fire, far faster and with more profound effects than even the Russian\nRevolution of 1917. It will raise the level of the working class internationally\nto heights never seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In every major\ncountry of the underdeveloped world, the working class, with the crisis of\nworld capitalism loaded on its back, is engaging in huge struggles against the\nbankrupt bosses and rotten regimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the working\nclass in struggle, the methods of guerillaism offer no solution. Guerrilla struggle cannot mobilise the\nworkers into a conscious force for the capture of power, the overthrow of\ncapitalism and the establishment of workers’ democracy. The methods of\nguerillaism can lead at best to deformed workers’ states in which the working\nclass is ruled by the armed forces and the bureaucracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way forward\nfor the working class in the underdeveloped world is through the development of\nits own programme within its own mass organisations, winning the support of the\noppressed peasantry in its struggle for the socialist transformation of society.\nAbove all it will need to link up with the struggle of the working class\ninternationally. Its model should be, not the Chinese and Cuban revolutions,\nbut the Russian Revolution of 1917.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, especially where the working class is a small force, a guerrilla struggle\nof the peasantry can have an important auxiliary role in the struggle for\nworkers’ power. In these conditions the proletarian revolution, based in the\ncities, must be assisted by the peasant war in the countryside under the overall\nleadership of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main task is\nto build the conscious movement of the working class for workers’ power and\nsocialism. The recent general strikes in countries such as Argentina, Sri\nLanka, India etc. have shown that also in the underdeveloped world the working\nclass is the key force to change society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis of capitalism will compel these workers to take their place in the front ranks of the world movement of the working class for the socialist transformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Part Two<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No. 5 (January 1982) by D. Sikhakhane & R. Monroe This is the first in a series of articles […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":780,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-784","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784\/revisions\/997"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}