10 Starting Points


(Last edited 5/18/13)

Imperialism is facing an unprecedented crisis with no apparent solutions. Our struggles must push the contradiction forward, to make it harder for the dominant classes as a whole to recover, and to lay the basis for an alternative to be built in our—the popular masses’—interests. Let’s organize and mobilize to face the ongoing attack of a rotten system, and build our capacity until we can defeat it.

1) We must develop our theoretical capacity to understand the nature of the system, the mechanisms of its functioning, its dynamism and tendencies, its strengths and weaknesses, the reasons for its sudden rapid degradation, and its struggle for survival.

2) We must build organizations at all levels (revolutionary, intermediate, mass). Without organizations strong enough to defeat the system’s ideological, political and economic domination, we will always be at their mercy. The enemy won’t concede or fall on its own.

3) We must unify ourselves based on our class interests. We should engage in discussions not for polemics, but for the purpose of consolidating our unity. A genuine desire for unity should guide our struggle within the people’s camp. We must “fight to agree,” so we can stand together against this rotten system.

4) At the mass level, we must distinguish between fundamental and secondary disagreements, and not divide over the latter. Our unity must not be simply written on paper, but constructed in the process of struggle, under the principle that in order to face this decomposing system we must solidify the unity of the people’s camp, under the leadership of the autonomous working class.

5) An organization without theory is an organization with no compass, no guide for action. We need theory if we are to reach our goals. It should not be static dogma, but in a constant mode of rectification, evaluation and consolidation.

6) Solid popular democratic organizations at all levels are constructed within the dialectical motion of the relationship between theory and practice. In this relationship, practice is determinant. The purpose of theory is as a guide to practice. We do not need to merely interpret and understand reality for its own sake, but to radically transform it.

7) An organization with a theory but no practice is a harmless study group. It will be unable to determine any goal, much less achieve it. Without its relation to practice, theory not only has no purpose, but is also motionless, comatose, unable to expand or advance. Our practice validates (or not) our theory, and allows our theory to grow and develop, in order to further advance our practice.

8.) Knowledge is not the property of a few, but belongs to all of us. Among us, it is most powerful when it is collective. The more that knowledge is collectively appropriated, the more solid and democratic our organizations are. In this process, we become more collective in our definition and understanding of the system, and of how to render it null.

9) Solutions are right here in front of us, not hidden in any formulas or scriptures. Only through struggle will the correct line emerge to guide us in discovering the solutions to our problems. We need to learn from the past with the objective of going beyond the past, not remain stuck there as the caravan of life passes in front of our eyes.

10) History will always advance whether we develop the tools and concepts to understand it or not. We can’t stop the advancement of history, so we should strive to understand it, with the objective of influencing it to the greatest extent possible. If, instead, we try to fit the dynamics of history into the parameters of previously acquired knowledge or incomplete concepts, or if we reject the use of concepts because of ideological issues such as dogmatism and sectarianism, then our understanding will be lopsided, limiting our capacity to intervene.

Advancing in our struggle is a must, or capital will continue to destroy our lives and the entire world itself. It is our historical task, and our great desire, to overcome capital, to achieve the emancipation of humanity for a classless and sustainable way of life.