Comrades, Socialist Revolution is Class Struggle, is Marxism.

By Franz J. T. Lee

My British colonial masters taught me that 'all work and no play makes Franz a very dull boy'. Decades ago, I really loved this ideological tenet of imperialist 'divide and rule' in Africa. However, under Apartheid, five decades ago, very soon I had to learn that this creative wisdom did not pertain to me, not to a toiling 'Kaffir', rather its very opposite was valid. I saw how my 'black' countrymen were driven out of their ancestral homes by brutal force, were crowded into 'labor concentration camps', then as wares, at random, as unqualified cheap physical laborers they were distributed in the mines, factories and plantations of the 'Whites'. There like the famous exported South African 'Outspan' oranges, they were squeezed dry, were over-worked, had no joy, no leisure; their very life juice was flowing into the world market; foreign capital accumulated by leaps and bounds; the 'white man's burden' increased while the life expectancy of a black physically laboring modern slave decreased, it fell to 35 years, that of his opulent master was skyrocketing to 70 years. By social fascist order, the capitalist system was committing genocide, the State was destroying, was murdering the best half of a worker's life, his very flowering, creative youth.

This is one of the most cruel, heinous crimes of world capitalism. Only a real, true anti-capitalist, socialist revolution can abolish such atrocities. If it does not, then it is not socialist.

As Oscar Heck pointed out in a VHeadline article, a while ago, with reference to 'killing softly' our President Chavez of Venezuela, by using the effective fascist strategy and capitalist weapon of over-work, of stress, that is, one is mercilessly being driven forward with the eternal whip of 'to make it'. Slowly but surely hard work, permanent toil, press out our life juice, that of any leader, of any living being. Finally, super-exploitation causes the total collapse of the individual, of the fighter, his 'natural death'. Obviously, this will happen to Chavez working himself to death for Venezuela, while we drive a luxurious Hummer car and devour tons of imported whiskey. Who laughs last will be Bush.

In the Sterkspruit district of the Eastern Cape, where I was born and grew up, living with my AmaXhosa neighbors, with this strategy, aided with dogs, rabbits were hunted. Once I witnessed this same, sure strategy being used by the Apartheid Gestapo (BOSS) watch-dogs to chase guerrillas in our mountains, by sadistically using helicopters, by letting them run desperately, until they fell down as a result of total exhaustion.

* A lesson for us: In this danger we, the Bolivarian Revolution and its popular leader, President Chavez currently find ourselves.

All social revolutions are not typical, classical or schematic, they are different, specific and concrete. They have their own logics, science and philosophy. There are not a myriad of socialist revolutions, in our opinion, there exists only a single global socialist revolution, the dialectical 'other side', the negation, the opposite of world capitalism, as a specific mode of production.

There are transhistoric seeds, roots, latencies, tendencies and possibilities of socialism as a mode of creation and creativity, but, like capitalism itself, there is one, sole socialism, which measured by its historic task, is scientific, philosophic and emancipatory. There does not exist a Zulu, Papua, Aztec or Napoleonic capitalism, similarly, no Russian, African, Arab or Yoruba socialism; least of all, no 'real, existent socialism' exists.

* Capitalism is a modern, globalized, exploitative, dominant and discriminatory mode of production, the only thing that can abolish it is its very own negation, globalized socialism, a transcending mode of working class emancipation, which must venture beyond all forms and formations of globalized capitalism.

* An important revolutionary lesson: class struggle exists in Venezuela, whether we like it or not, as Marxism, it will exist until the end of capitalism.

At the moment, crossing the Rubicon, this is one of the first urgent lessons for the Bolivarian Revolution to study immediately, that is, to act and transcend accordingly.

Social revolutions, specifically the socialist revolution, as scientifically studied, made and thought by global Marxist liberators are not one day creatures, they can be swift, they can take decades, or even centuries to materialize. Because of their inner logics and contradictions, of their historic tasks, they have their ups and downs, their pros and cons, they do not develop in a straight line; like the Bolivarian Revolution, they can enjoy high tides for a decade, and suddenly, as a surprise, fall into ebb tides, sometimes they get stuck in the doldrums, causing praxical frustration and theoretical confusion.

* This is another pertinent lesson to learn in Venezuela: Failure is dialectically the other side of victory, both are revolutionary parts of the same revolutionary process. Class struggle and class consciousness are nor formal logical categories. Also the bourgeoisie participates in class struggle. It exists independent of our ideological nightmares.

Nothing to worry about that the counter-revolutionary forces seemingly have a momentary advantage. As Marx emphasized, this 'whip' is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, to launch the revolution on another emancipatory degree, to get rid of the scum in our midst, in socialist revolution quality will decide the final victory.

* In spite of all the differences, what do social revolutions, including the socialist one, have in common?

* What is the quintessence of social revolution?

Let us recapitulate: within history, the process of production, there exists not 'rich' and 'poor' but masters and slaves. Any form of production, any formation of labor, logically produces antagonistic social classes, social class relations, the ruling ones and those who are being ruled, are exploited, dominated, discriminated, massacred and alienated. This is the quintessence of class struggle. This is the raison d'etre for social revolution.

*Another lesson for Venezuela: All social revolutions, especially the socialist one, are class struggles.

It does not matter on which level of production a social revolution finds itself. This transhistoric reality ranges from primitive capital accumulation in a slave-owning society till modern global corporate imperialism: a modern system that economically exploits the very meso-, micro- and macro-cosmos in its totality. Furthermore, at this level of our Bolivarian Revolution we should distinguish between the accumulation of capital within past dominant modes of production and capitalism which is a contemporary dominant globalized mode of production. The latter is what we have to annihilate.

* This lead us to the next lesson: Socialism is class struggle, is not class consensus, is not a pacific alliance of labor and capital, is a social revolution within world capitalism, is a negation, is the categoric negation of capitalism, is truly anti-capitalist, and only as such is truly anti-imperialist, the very contrary of being anti-Empire or anti-imperial.

* This launches the next lesson, the decisive question for us: Reform or Revolution, Barbarism or Socialism?

As Rosa Luxemburg pointed out in her famous writing 'Social Reform or Revolution' (1900) against Eduard Bernstein, pure social reform within the global capitalist mode of production could be a means of revolution, but it is never the end of socialist revolution, of modern class struggle. It is counterrevolutionary to make reformism a revolutionary goal, its quo vadis. Reformism is limited social change within the exploitative capitalist mode, it is not its abolition. Socialist Revolution is crossing the Rubicon, is destroying barbarism, neo-liberal savagery.

* Hence, comrades, socialist revolution is class struggle, is Marxism. We are free to make anything which we want, but we have to be very careful what we call it. Hitler, Goering and Goebbels called Fascism National Socialism.

At this moment, this year 2008 is decisive. In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution is destined to reveal its transhistoric quintessence, to make the socialist leap into real, true, anti-capitalist emancipation, or, to stagnate in 'Chavism without Chavez', reformism, gentlemen agreements, corruption, impunity, barrels of imported Yankee whiskey, class consensus, neo-liberal savagery and Nazi barbarism.

I read George Plechanov's famous book in 1960, The Role of the Individual in History, in South Africa, and learned that no single god, idea, man or people could ever make 'history', could make the socialist revolution. By coincidence, President Chavez also read this book years later.

If we love Chavez, please send him to enjoy holidays in Amazonia, and in the meantime, let us multiply him with millions. Only then he will not collapse, will not become a victim of ruling class treachery.

* Hence, the final lesson: The workers of Venezuela, of the world, have no Patria, no homeland. It is their revolutionary duty to found their own socialist vanguard party, in the tradition of the victorious Bolshevik Party of Lenin.
(See: http://www.franzlee.org/marxmanifesto.html)

The only way to stop such a workers party was to kill all its vanguard leaders, only as such fascist Stalinism could triumph in the Soviet Union. This tragedy should never occur on Venezuelan soil. Hence comrades beware! We live in an extremely dangerous local, regional, national and international epoch. Venezuela: It is socialism now or never!
vene...@franzlee.org
http://www.franzlee.org