A society with capitalism at its foundation blocks its own future,
its own way forward. Such a society, as it exists in the U.S. today,
blocks the youth and students from all sides. It provides no future
for the youth and students. Many are condemned as teenagers to be
members of the growing army of unemployed, or imprisoned as
criminals.
Within these existing capitalist conditions, the youth and
students must break with the outlook of seeking a life within the
capitalist status quo. The higher stage of society is socialism and
such a new society can be created only through social revolution.
In every sense of the word, the youth and students must be in the
front-ranks of the revolutionary forces who are preparing the
conditions for the transition to the new society. One day, after
this lower level of society is out of the way, all human beings
will live as revolutionaries, with revolution as their greatest
aspiration, as the very aim of living.
Revolutionary struggle is the only way the youth and students
can create a broad future for themselves and for the generations to
come. The old society is adamantly opposed to the youth and
students taking the revolutionary path and breaking away from the
capitalist status quo. It does everything in its power to keep the
youth and students under their influence. Every word, every song,
every film, every television show, every political trend, every new
fad that emanates from the capitalist status quo must be seriously
questioned and analyzed from the revolutionary perspective.
The question of organizing the youth cannot be considered a
responsibility of the older generation. U.S. society is split
between antagonistic classes not generations. Class oppression and
class antagonisms exist objectively. Within these circumstances,
people spontaneously have views on the state of affairs - their own
problems, desire for change and things that they dislike. Different
social forces go into action and become organized. The issue is
whether the youth feel in any shape and form oppressed, and if so,
where their struggle is headed. Within this context, the question
arises of whether there is already a communist organization in
existence that active people can join. Are the ideas that the
bourgeoisie puts forward militantly opposed at every turn by some
group? Is there a pro-social program being popularized and
discussed that active people can latch on to and make a
contribution? Does a vision exist that delineates the next stage of
society? If however, nobody is oppressed or nobody feels oppressed,
then there will be no fight against the status quo. If feelings do
not exist amongst the youth spontaneously, a burning sentiment to
fight whoever is oppressing them, then why do "adults" want to go
and force them to organize? What will be the reason to do that?
Would that not just add to their oppression? Why should the
communists organize those youth who think that by following Ronald
Reagan or some drug addicted musician or rock singer they will
solve their problems? If they think that by doing such things they
will have a future, let them go; let them find out for themselves.
Unless there is a force that right from the beginning
differentiates itself from bourgeois culture, there can be no talk
of organizing the youth. Without that communist force waging
ideological struggle against all the nonsense the bourgeoisie is
spewing forth, the organizing of the youth will end up as the
traditional so-called "socialist" youth, trotskyist youth and other
bourgeois organizations disrupting society, promoting all sorts of
things which are very dangerous. Side by side with these
organizations are the youth wings of the big political parties.
Serious organizing of the youth arises from youth who feel
negated by the society. Young women are the most negated at this
time and should be the natural recruits for a revolutionary
organization. Marxism is not developed just by fancy talk. When Marx was
a young man they chased him out of his university; they chased him to
Paris and then to London and they never let him back into Germany. As a
student and intellectual he was negated, but he fought that negation
tenaciously. Others, who were also in the same boat, gravitated
towards him. Frederick Engels is the best example. Marx was never
permitted to pursue his studies in peace; he was always harassed by
the bourgeois authorities at every level. The youth today who are
not ready to differentiate themselves from the existing society,
they are not going to do anything. Communists should not try to
twist their arms and proselytize in their faces that they should
know better. These people will lower everything, especially
politics, to career moves. It is very condescending to behave like
an evangelist. Militant youth, serious youth, will organize; the
world will not be able to stop them from organizing.
Today's youth are stuck listening to the endless anti-social
drivel that is spewed out in the form of music, on television, from
their parents, the authorities and their teachers. And they accept
it. They even go out and buy it. They will work hours upon hours at
MacDonald's and go out and spend their money on a ridiculous,
chauvinist American film like "Independence Day." That film made
$100 million in one weekend! Who shelled out the money for it?
Young people from all over the world are facing a similar
situation. It doesn't matter who runs around with red flags and
portraits of Lenin and Stalin; it amounts to nothing if they do not
take up a program which will lead to the creation of a new society.
When Lenin became a leader, that was the issue he and his comrades
faced -Revolutionary politics were smothered with bourgeois
culture. Only the Bolsheviks fought against this and they achieved
something in this world. All the others succumbed to the
enticements of the bourgeoisie, and along with the youth, marched
off to the imperialist war singing the patriotic hymns and chanting
their undying loyalty to their own bourgeoisie. And what happened?
Their young lives were snuffed out in their millions on the killing
fields of Europe. And now they recite poems to the teenagers and
others whose corpses rest in Flanders Field. Only Lenin's
Bolsheviks fought against this insidious notion that the people can
have revolutionary politics but bourgeois culture.
Today young people are given the notion that bourgeois life
is a given, that it is a natural way of living. They revel in the
so-called freedom provided by a disintegrating society, even as the
same disintegration is the source of their distress. Revolutionary
politics is acceptable to them as something that they do once in a
while. Maybe they occasionally buy a Communist paper, or
participate in a discussion or go to a demonstration and shout some
slogans. There is a very serious crisis amongst the youth. Their
uplifting is to tell the truth; it is to have amongst them those
who are fighting, who are not afraid to speak of the atrocities the
bourgeoisie is planning, those who are in the forefront of
ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The difficult situation with regards to the youth organizing
is the fault of the older generation only in the sense that if they
had been successful in organizing social revolution then these same
young people would have followed them. But they failed and this
whole crest of revolution that rose so high during the century has
now fallen and there is a retreat of revolution. Of course, as with
every ebb it cannot continue; it must turn again into flow and the
people will fight; they will rise, but not because anyone here
tells them to rise, wills them to get off their knees. This ranting
and raving, this imploring the people to go into battle is the
style of those who have a hidden agenda. Proselytizing, evangelical
attitudes are all conducive to reaction, not to revolution, not to
progressive views. Every charlatan reduces communism, reduces
Marxism to evangelical ideas. Once in a while they proselytize,
they speak of an ideal society to come, in the same manner as the
fire and brimstone preachers that appear on television. Marxism is
not like that. Marxism-Leninism is a science, a guide to action. If
there is no action on the part of the masses, what is there to
guide?
This is not the first time such a degradation has taken place.
Before the First World War and during it, this very thing was a
serious problem. Marxism had become a camouflage for social
chauvinism, for singing hymns to confuse the people. There was the
corporate and anti-corporate agenda that worked together to
undermine the opposition to imperialism. The result was that a
massive number of youth were slaughtered during the First World
War. This is the price one pays for sitting around and listening to
the fairy tales of the bourgeoisie in cultural form. This is the
price the people pay for their leaders abandoning ideological
struggle and embracing bourgeois culture.
It is estimated that half a billion youth will be butchered in
the eventuality of another world war. And these parents nowadays
who are cultivating their kids, simply refuse to face this
reality. They create illusions that there is a future for their
children under imperialism; they refuse to tell their children the
truth, even those who for years shouted slogans denouncing
careerism and the decadent bourgeois education system.
To be optimistic and full of energy for revolutionary struggle
one has to really appreciate the concrete conditions. For example,
what is the level of discussion amongst the youth? If the level of
discussion is not raised, if political discussion is not developed
and a stern battle does not take place in the sphere of ideas, then
no matter how many utopia are outlined to the youth they will not
respond. Those who do not care today will not turn into youth who
care on the basis of hearing how beautiful communism is going to
be; it will not happen.
There is a definite lessening of the anti-communism that
reached its apex during the fall of the Soviet Union. To say that the
youth, in a very general way are not anti-communist reveals that they have
genuine democratic feelings and are humanitarian. This generation
is probably more humanitarian than any other previous generation of
youth. Within these circumstances where are they? What is their
level, their gravitation? This is what the problem is. This is what
should be discussed.
Everyone should be willing to look reality right in the eye.
The communists should speak straightforwardly. The issue is clearly
that the progressive youth and students must organize. It means
spending the majority of time raising the level of discussion among the
youth. From that activity, optimism and enthusiasm will flow and
abound.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
