Second Issue of the new English-language Journal Revolutionary Communism!

In January we have published the second issue of Revolutionary Communism. Revolutionary Communism is published by the Revolutionary Workers Organisation (RWO, Pakistan), the United Lankan Workers Party (ULWP, Sri Lanka), the Revolutionary Communist Organisation for Liberation (RKOB, Austria) and the Revolutionary Work¬ers Collective (RWC, USA) As a theoretical journal it shall contribute to the building of an international revolutionary communist tendency. The second issue contains the following articles:

* Editorial

* Pakistan: For mass mobilization against US imperialism and its henchmen! No to a military coup! No support for the Zardari government! (Resolution of the RWO, 14.12.2011)

* Political Platform of the Revolutionary Workers Organisation (Pakistan)

* Perspectives in the Greek Revolution. The Greek tragedy is the tragedy of the lack of a revolutionary leadership of the workers movement For Workers’ Councils, Workers’ Militias and a Workers’ Government! (Resolution of the RKOB, 10.11.2011)

* Solidarity with the „Occupy Wall Street“ movement! Expropriate Wall Street! (Resolution of the RWC, 7.10.2011)

* Defend Iran against the U.S., EU and Israel warmongers! (Resolution of the RKOB, 9.11.2011)

* After the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo: The struggle against the Israeli Apartheid State is an integral part of the Arab Revolution (Resolution of the RKOB, 15.9.2011)

* Advance the Libyan Revolution: Program for Permanent Revolution (Joint Resolution by the HWRS (USA), CWG (Aotearoa/NZ), RWG (Zimbabwe) and RKOB (Austria), 12.9.2011)

* What sort of Fifth International do we need? (Michael Pröbsting)

* RKOB: What do we stand for

The journal has 40 pages
Price: 5 Euro / 7 US-Dollar / 4,5 UK Pound

If you want to receive the journal Revolutionary Communism by post you can contact us via our website www.rkob.net or send us an e-mail to aktiv@rkob.net.

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Editorial for Revolutionary Communism No. 2

This second issue of our English language journal Revolutionary Communism reflects important developments in the international class struggle in the last few months since our first issue appeared in September 2011. These events have proven again the assessment of the Bolshevik-Communists that the world has entered a new historic period characterised by the death agony of capitalism, a sharpening of the class contradictions and struggles and hence a period full of (pre)revolutionary developments and counterrevolutionary dangers. It is a period, which has the question, which class possesses power, at its centre and puts humanity before the alternative “Socialism or Barbarism”. In short, it is a historic revolutionary period.

In this context one can’t over-emphasise the central importance of the working class to create a leadership which is capable of meeting the challenges posed by the capitalist’s attacks. Only a leadership which possess a program showing the road from the defensive struggles today to the struggle for power tomorrow can advance the working class cause. Only a leadership which speaks out uncompromisingly for the liberation of the working class and all oppressed and does not “forget” sectors of the oppressed in order not to offend (petty-)bourgeois leaderships; only a leadership which name names and openly denounce the false misleaders of the class and the oppressed; only a leadership which combines the words with the deeds – only such a leadership can lead the working class to a successful revolution.

Such a leadership cannot be organised other than in a revolutionary party nationally and internationally – based on the model of the Bolshevik party under Lenin, the only party in history which successfully led the working class to power.

The tragedy of the present political conjuncture is the enormous gap between the sharpness of the class contradictions and the complete lack of a sharp instrument for the working class to overcome these contradictions. In other words such a party for the liberation struggle does not exist at the moment. The working class, the peasantry, the oppressed nations have at their top various reformist, nationalist, liberal, religious forces. Understanding their dangerous role, combining open propaganda and agitation against them with an elastic united front tactic which is directed in the first line towards the rank and file workers and in this context put demands to the leaders which they still trust, fighting for a program around which Bolshevik fighting parties – respective pre-party organisations as a first step – this is the essential task for revolutionaries in the coming period. The fundamental principle of every Bolshevik organisation is and can only be what Rosa Luxemburg – this great women leader of our movement – once summarised in the sentence: „And nothing is more revolutionary, than to recognize and speak out what is“ (Rosa Luxemburg: Speech about socialist tactic (at the International Socialist Congreß in August 1904 in Amsterdam); in: Gesammelte Werke Band 1.2, p. 446 (translation from German by us))

It is in the light of this burning task of building a new world party of socialist revolution – the Fifth Workers’ International – we analyse and develop strategies and tactics for the most important events of the world class struggle.

Our comrades from the Revolutionary Workers Organisation (RWO) in Pakistan present in this journal their resolution “Pakistan: For mass mobilization against US imperialism and its henchmen! No to a military coup! No support for the Zardari government!” in which they take a revolutionary position on the latest political turmoil in their country. We also reprint their political platform which summarises their programmatic positions.

Greece is obviously the country where the class struggle in Europe reached its highest stage in the past 2 years. We therefore outline in the RKOB-resolution “Perspectives in the Greek Revolution“ our analysis of Greek capitalism, the general strike movement, the failed strategy of the reformist and centrist forces and a revolutionary program.

Iran can become the next target of the Western imperialist military machinery. We are therefore publishing our resolution “Defend Iran against the U.S., EU and Israel warmongers!” on the threatening war, combining the fundamental class opposition to the bourgeois-theocratic regime in Iran with a principled anti-imperialist defence of the country against any imperialist attack.

Our US-American comrades analyse the Occupation movement in the resolution “Solidarity with the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement! Expropriate Wall Street!”. In it they combine an enthusiastic appraisal of the emergence of this democratic protest movement with a critical analysis of the widely held petty-bourgeois illusions and outline a revolutionary answer to the challenges of the struggle.

The Arab Revolution was and is one of the most important questions of the present world situation and we therefore publish two resolutions on this. One deals with the Arab revolution and the necessary revolutionary struggle against the Zionist state Israel. Another resolution deals with the end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. This resolution is a joint resolution with organisation (CWG (Aotearoa/NZ), the HWRS (USA) and the RWG (Zimbabwe)) with which we are in a process of discussion and collaboration with the view of overcoming remaining differences.

Finally we publish a programmatic essay “What sort of Fifth International do we need?”. It was written by our comrade Michael Pröbsting as a background document on the strategy for the Fifth Workers’ International. This article was originally written in 2010 before our bureaucratic expulsion from the ranks of the LFI and we publish it here with an actual preface.

The journal also reflects important developments in our efforts to build a revolutionary communist international tendency. Since the publication of the first issue our English language journal Revolutionary Communism two new organisations have joined the original Revolutionary Communist Organisation for Liberation (RKOB, Austria) and the Revolutionary Workers Collective (RWC, USA). It is the Revolutionary Workers Organisation (RWO, Pakistan) and the United Lankan Workers Party (ULWP, Sri Lanka). While the RWO stems from a recent split following a factions struggle inside the Pakistani LFI section, the ULWP is the product of the joint efforts of former leaders of the Sri Lanka LFI section and other revolutionary working class cadre mainly among the most oppressed Tamil plantation workers. Both have in common the determination to break with all forms of opportunism towards reformism and centrism and sectarianism towards the liberation struggles of oppressed nations.

We have decided to build together a revolutionary communist international tendency. If you share this desire, join us!

11. January 2012
Editorial Board of the Journal Revolutionary Communism