From the Archive: Arm the Masses – July 1991 Editorial (Page 10)

An Excerpt from the Editorial: The Theory of Simultaneity and The Role of Spontaneity Its Strength and Weaknesses

US Imperialism’s Two Contradicitions

There are two contradictions that are diametrically opposed to imperialism which affect the quality of life of African people in Amerikkka. The oppression and colonization of the Black Nation is the sharpest contradiction due to its unique materialist history: the continual racist oppression during the development of capitalism and up to the rise and expansion of US imperialism. The second contradiction is between labor and the rise, expansion and monopolization of capital (money) and the amassing of wealth for the purpose of gaining surplus value. This is the classical Marxist analysis of the contradiction between capital and labor. This contradiction exists ojectively for Blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and white working class people. Because labor (worker’s production power) and the means of production are controlled, owned and totally dominated by the bourgeoisie, the masses of working class people are subject to and live under the oppression  and exploitation of a capitalist political and ecnomic system that dehumanizes and reduces men’s and women’s labor to an exploitable commodity. This is the objective essence of the class contradiction for the toiling working class of the Black Nation and other working class people in Amerikkka.

Both of these contradictions — the oppression of the Black Nation and the exploitation of the working class — must fundamentally be struggles against openly and with the masses defeat and overthrow monopoly finance capitalism and imperialism in Amerikkka. Inherent to both contradictions is the subjective (race and class of people) and the objective (political and economic power) character that defines clear lines of demarcation in relationship to the fascist bourgeoisie’s social existence and quality of life. The form and essence of these contradictions for the Black Nation and working class have two distinct aspects in their subjective character (race and class oppression) — Black field workers and racist white workers. This analysis must be applied to the make up and conditions of expansionist and dominating monopoly finance capitalism under US imperialism in order to determine the objective basis of revolutionary nationalist’s struggle. The fascist continues to thrive only because of the exploitation of both these subjective and objective contradictions. There cannot be a successful political and military victory with a protracted analysis of the concrete conditions, the strengths and weaknesses of domestic colonialism, monopoly finance capitalism, US imperialism and racism.

Within the two contradictions, the primary contradiction is the sharpest contradiction — the oppression of the Black and colored nations inside the US imperialist borders; the secondary contradiction is that of capital and labor — the oppression and exploitation of the working classes). The class contradiction is equally important and it is fundamentally necessary to struggle against it to raise the class consciousness  of the masses, and objectively define friends and enemies in class struggle.

The theory of “simultaneity” puts forth simultaneous struggle for class struggle and concrete practice for wars of national liberation for independence and political sovereignty for the Black Nation, the Chicano Nation, and the Puerto Rican Nation: all for the national proletarian revolutionary war for socialism.

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