A few weeks ago, the cover story of The Economist was titled “The rise of millennial socialism”. It expresses the concerns in the high spheres of power of capitalist power about the reawakening of left-wing ideas in the new generation. We Marxists believe that the youth works as a social and political resonance box, that anticipates emerging phenomena. In this positive shift to the left of the world´s youth, we want to pose our particular vision.
Taking the world as a whole, we could say that a current characteristic is the exacerbation of social and political extremes. In the United States there is Trump, but the left grows. There is Le Pen and Macron in France, but there are also the yellow vests. In Algeria, as we write this article, the tyrant Buteflika had to resign from his perpetuation in power because of the persistence of social mobilization. In Latin America there is Nicaragua with the authoritarian regime of Ortega-Murillo that applies the austerity plans of the IMF, but the resistance (despite the imprisonments and murders) has not been defeated. In Brazil, Bolsonaro is still not strong because of the social rejection of his program on the streets. In Argentina, where Macri began expressing polarization and the vitality of a new right that came for everything, it is now unclear whether he will even finish his term and how he will continue. Because of the anger, actions take place despite every obstacle -8M and 24M- are massive. This exacerbation of the extremes of a symptom of revolution, of forces in tension that are ready to clash. On one side, those who hold power, for now, push to impose their conditions, to change the correlation of forces in their favor, to expropriate our present and future. On the other side, an objective movement that reacts with the sub-25 youth fighting in an internationalist and anti-patriarchal key, like the feminist wave and conscious that the problem is not the climate, but the system and the policies of its leaders, like the #FridaysForFuture movement. In Argentina, an intense anti-Macrism reigns in an overwhelming majority of the youth. It grows, and our purpose is to promote the total rejection of the confluence with “pro-lifers”, soy producers, bureaucrats and the political caste with the only purpose of wining against Macri, which is the main objective that Kirchnerism and its satellite groups raise. Our struggle is for a general re-organization of everything. Our strategy is changing every rule.
Lenin
The leader, along with Trotsky, of the Russian Revolution, wrote a small and brilliant book: State and Revolution. In it, he explains a simple thesis: this State belongs to the bourgeoisie, it has its policies, its rules, its institutions. It is conceived to protect its interests. Our proposal is not to administer it, but to actually dismantle it. On this point, we are more Leninist than ever. Our project of revolution has the perspective of destroying what is not useful: its financial system at the service of the IMF and the speculators, its logic of producing for the bosses profit; its judges and spies, the sewer of this capitalist democracy; the bureaucracy of the unions, the castes of the universities, its institutions of oppression like patriarchy; its xenophobia. That means that this is not our democracy, these are not our governments, this is not our social model. We fight for a different power, for a different social class, without borders, with each country as a first chapter of an international struggle.
Millennials for the revolution
Our project is expressed in the measures we propose to assure our rights, and the kind of militancy we develop is justified by the adversaries we must face. For example, last week everyone debated the poverty numbers, but only a party like ours has the proposals to solve it: not paying the IMF, nationalizing the bank accounts of speculators and controlling what comes in and out of the country’s market, nationalizing that mechanism of the economy. This way we could have resources to finance a massive public works project and create jobs, investing in a planned industry development to be independent, increasing the budget for education, health, science. Therefore, it would be a high-impact measure to eradicate poverty in a revolutionary way. Having a job, as a right, could be assured: calculating the total need of production of the basic necessities for working people. In economy, that can be measured in social hours that could be divided among the total available working force and adjust the work day to those parameters. Obviously, technology would be incorporated, but to lighten the collective load of social work, not to replace people for machines. And people´s wages would be determined by the cost of living. But let’s go on. Democracy, the justice system must be dependent, completely dependent, but of the social majority. This means that it must be the direct representation of social positions and opinions, democratically and quickly expressed. Without privileges for politicians or judges. How would this work? Easy: everything would be elected, and the capacity to recall everything would be stipulated. Also, wages would be equal to that of a qualified worker, not of the elite. This would assure a real democracy, a previous casting of the best representation, by controlling a sufficient material income, cleaning the system of parasites. More? The dismantling of patriarchy. It is not difficult, there are measures. Socializing child care tasks, emancipating women from (unpaid) housework. Applying the ESI (Integral Sex Education) law with a feminist, diverse, scientific and secular perspective. Separating the Church from the State. Legal abortion. And we could go on. In a specific article, we explain our environmental proposals. In synthesis: there are practical and clear measures to reverse the aggression of exploitative,oppressive, patriarchal and ecocidal capitalism. This is possible.
Taking a side and building a party to turn everything upside down
The measures needed to assure the most essential rights question the private property of the great capitalists and their entire political system of institutions and repressive apparatus. Therefore, there are no conditions for resolving this dispute peacefully: the confronting poles are antagonistic, with incompatible material interests. That is, the existential reason of the capitalists as a class depends on the exploitation of the working class, of the double oppression of women and the political control of everything. That is why this antagonism cannot be negotiated, it must be resolved in a revolutionary manner, with strong mobilized action, with a strategic leadership to throw the capitalists out of political power and, from there, taking hold of every lever of control of the economy and everything. To truly democratize everything, because our socialism is for the economy, for politics, for the relationships between the people who work (and not live from the exploitation of others), and between the peoples of the world, without borders. This struggle for power, is a struggle of ideas, but ends up on the streets as a physical and concrete struggle, concentrated in specific episodes, which are the insurrections. To accumulate social force and a lot of previous militant organization, we need a planned and voluntary, patient, constant, collective and passionate activity of thousands of people around these issues. The party we are building in Argentina, the MST, and the international organization that it is part of, are getting stronger every day with these basic principles. But the changes that are needed, require many people. It is not a task for illuminated minorities but conscious majorities. That is why it is urgent to bring new activists to these principles. In this sense, our Easter Camps that start on April 19 are planned in different provinces as an active pause for deliberation, education and building consciousness ans enthusiasm for more actions in the ideological struggle, the class struggle and for the revolution. We invite you to take part.
Mariano Rosa