Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Be militant, NOT stubborn! (Erik) by X.

Militancy is a disciplined commitment TO A GOAL. It involves determination, taking risks, making sacrifices, but only when doing so is necessary to achieve the goal. What is necessary is defined by real circumstances, and therefore the more we understand the circumstances the more we can understand what is necessary. So the more knowledge we have about organizing, strategy, and power building, the more militant we as revolutionaries can be.

The world is incredibly diverse, and there are unlimited situations with different specifics, and each one needs tactics that are relevant to those specifics. A militant revolutionary is constantly analyzing to see what has been effective, and reanalyzing as new evidence arises and as new circumstances arise.

Militancy is a willingness to use necessary tactics, as opposed to stubbornness and tradition which is a tendency to use particular tactics. For example there is a mistaken belief that people who engage in street fighting, black block protests, who refuse to engage in certain tactics labeled “reformist”, and who get arrested are very militant. These people may be militant, but only if they can explain how applying tactics the way they do is building a movement that can achieve its goals.

Stubborn people may have good intentions, but people are dying every day from the cogs of capitalism and organizers with good intentions are little consolation. The fact is that what is militant is not always dramatic or glamorous, in fact its usually not.

The interesting thing about understanding militancy like this is that interesting things can be militant. Phone-banking, recruiting members, maintaining a spreadsheet, preparing an agenda are some of the most militant things people can do in the movement. Slowing down to avoid burnout, when all you want to do is throw yourself into the cause can be militant. Mentoring others rather than doing work yourself is EXTREMELY militant. These are the things that keep the movement growing.

Dramatic confrontations with state power are sometimes necessary, but only a minute fraction of the time that must be spent building democratic dual power. So as it turns out, militancy doesn’t belong to a super-committed elite. Anyone can be militant, the truth is, not everyone wants to.

The movement does not have to be elitist or cliquish (Tim) by X.

Often left-wing groups, especially student groups, gain notoriety (deserved or not) for being insular and cliquish. Organizers must constantly keep aware of group dynamics and the effect this has on allies and potential members. Besides obvious problems such as sexism or hetero-normativity, in-group out-group behavior can also be very detrimental on retention: insularity can be easily and often unconsciously reinforced by usage of inside jokes, leftist jargon, etc.

Special effort should be made to make new people feel welcome in the group, and to solicit their participation as early as possible, thus giving them a stake in the movement. This can be done by something as simple as directing the person toward a particular project or committee. Even more elementary: if a new person shows up to a meeting, take time out to talk to this person before or after, and make sure that everyone else does too. This can be difficult if, say, you are at a meeting with a close friend you haven’t seen for a few weeks, or perhaps you see someone else you’d prefer to talk to. But we should always keep in mind that we are trying to create a movement which anticipates a better society, a society for all, not just a few.

An anticipatory movement (Tim) by X.

“Freedom is merely privilege extended,
Unless enjoyed by one and all.”
- The Internationale

We wish to live in a society which is not sexist, racist, homophobic, class-riven and militaristic. We wish to live in a society which is more fundamentally democratic and participatory; one in which people have a say in the decisions which are governing their lives. Yet we cannot reach this goal if our movement is anti-democratic and authoritarian, sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. As much as possible we should attempt to have a movement which serves in some sense as a model for the configuration of the society of the future.

However, many deep-seated forms of injustice cannot be adequately addressed by simply attacking them within the movement. If we spend all of our time addressing issues of, say, hierarchy or privilege within the movement, we will have little time left for eliminating the much more egregious forms of hierarchy and privilege which currently deform our society. The establishment of non-hierarchical relations within a small group is itself a form of privilege which is moot if not extended to one and all. Unfortunately there is no tried-and-true method for successfully combating oppression both within the movement and without simultaneously. One method we will suggest is the paradigm of consciousness-raising.

Simply put, consciousness-raising is based on the realization that not everyone comes to the movement with perfect politics. All of us are, to greater or lesser extents, recovering racists, homophobes, etc. What is needed, then is a space in which people can become more radicalized and learn, but in a context where they feel it is okay to make mistakes and that they are surrounded by comrades who will forgive but will also hold them up to higher standards.

Applying this paradigm to revolutionary democracy means that consciousness-raising cannot be permitted to be the prerogative of the few, but that the consciousness of the people must be raised on a mass scale. A simple example of mass consciousness raising comes from the “red ribbon” campaign undertaken by HIV/AIDS activists in the early 1990s. This was a participatory tactic which was a major part in increasing awareness of HIV/AIDS and changing public perception of the issue.

Democracy in the movement (Keith, X., Tommy D) by X.

Whereas many on the US Left mistakenly think that democracy is dangerous and that the rule of the majority is a threat, Revolutionary Democracy holds that the greatest threat is a lack of democracy—the lack of democracy makes the arbitrary rule of the wealthy minority possible. Democracy cannot be based on the comfort of a permanent, unchanging majority but -quite the opposite- it can only reach its full potential through the fullest emancipation of all, the fullest expression of all and the fullest exchange of ideas.

Revolutionary Democracy is practiced and developed within the movement just as it is in society at large. Revolutionary Democracy insists that the people that do the work to build the movement, its organizations, events and activities are also the ones that make the decisions. The movement itself must be radically democratic so it becomes the image of the society it aims to build. The project is non-exclusionary: Anyone that wants to contribute can and their contribution means they get to decide how things are run. The movement must not imitate the power structure of capitalism (big capitalist shareholders, for instance, contribute nothing, but under capitalism they make all the decisions). Instead, in a revolutionary democratic movement, everyone is entitled to make decisions based on their contribution.

As the movement grows along these lines, it will expand the model of revolutionary democratic participation into more aspects of productive and social life. While the movement may grow in fits and starts and at times make great strides forward, the revolution is in the process itself and in its expansion. Rather than saying “power to the people;” we say “people are the power.” Their power becomes realized as they organize themselves into a movement and supplant the non-democratic society with a democratic society of their own making. Revolutionary Democracy rejects the old saying that “political power flows from the barrel of a gun.” Political power grows out of the movement of people.

"This is what democracy looks like!" (X.) by X.

The slogan “This is what democracy looks like!” hit the big time in 1999 during the street protests opposing the World Trade Organization at their meeting in Seattle. It became the title of a seminal underground documentary that narrated and helped define the events for progressives all over the country. The slogan was obviously a direct response to the highly undemocratic character of the WTO and to the authoritarian and repressive counter-protest tactics of the Seattle police department. But the ease with which those few words spread throughout the broader movement (and especially the younger generation) hints at something deeper: In many ways, the Seattle protests represented a reaction to the waning power of the traditional US Left. They were a reaction to the complacent 80’s and 90’s during which the advocacy faction took over the leadership of the movement and led it into steep decline, displacing the protest faction that dominated the 60’s and 70’s. In this sense, the crowds of activists in the streets of Seattle also chanted: “This is what the movement looks like!”

A large and relatively diverse array of groups had gathered in Seattle for the largest protest in years, in direct opposition to the powers-that-be. The WTO protesters delivered a broad critique of the system on the system’s own turf. But not only did they challenge capitalism’s “new world order”, they challenged the prevailing “common wisdom” of the advocacy partisans in positions of leadership throughout the US Left that for years have channeled the movement into reformist, single-issue activism by proxy (from union contracts to affirmative action to abortion rights to saving endangered species). The demonstrators -made up largely of dissidents young and old within the US Left- organized a mass (if short-lived) challenge to big capital. And it blew their minds that by working together they successfully prevented business as usual for the rulers of the planet. For a little while, they “shut down” the WTO…

The success of the protesters in achieving their goal unfortunately overshadowed the most important aspect of the Seattle experience. While the mainstream media focused mainly on isolated incidents of vandalism, the movement narrative (as told in the “This Is What Democracy Looks Like!” documentary, for example) focused much attention on the confrontation pitting the mass of protesters against the police and WTO bureaucrats.

The most revolutionary democratic activities did not take place during those street battles, however. Quite to the contrary, democracy was mainly built before and after each protest. The key factor that set the WTO protests aside from most prior protests is that they lasted for several days during which a vast but fragmented network of progressive activists had to contend with tremendous logistical challenges in close proximity to one another. The planning of daily marching routes, resistance to police repression, first aid assistance, room and board, jail solidarity, teach-ins, liberation of resources, etc required a multitude of activists of every shade of the Left political spectrum to cooperate in some way. Numerous decentralized, grassroots initiatives brought together groups that previously had never worked together, building coalitional trust and fostering unity of action to overcome ideological differences. In other words, the movement had to try and practice democracy in order to exist.

The most striking examples of budding revolutionary democracy in action can be found in interviews of the diverse activists that participated in the three days of WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 (these interviews are available at the online WTO History Project hosted by the University of Washington). In the weeks that led up to the protests, a multitude of labor unions, issue groups, student groups, revolutionary groups, etc. cooperated in one form or another to plan for the demonstrations (amidst a host of disagreements over the purpose and the tactics of the protest). A careful reading of the activists’ interviews shows how rapidly the movement coalesced at the grassroots level in the last few days and especially during the “downtime” in between protests once the WTO ministerial conference had begun.

This so-called “downtime” was in fact the “organizing time” during which thousands of activists of every shade of the Left political spectrum resided in close proximity to one another in de facto “liberated zones” in and around Seattle. The geographic closeness and the magnitude of the logistical challenges led these activists to exchange ideas, share resources and make plans together. They became movement organizers as they began to work and decide together, as they began to practice democracy like they never had before. This process of budding revolutionary democracy is credited in many interviews for the decision by a number of “older” protesters to break away from the relatively non-confrontational, pre-approved march routes to join “younger” activists in direct actions in the “no protest” zone declared by the city police.

Richard Feldman, Director, Worker Center, King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO:

… And then there was other coalition activity, as it got closer, there was a regular meeting, kind of a coordinating meeting that I attended, that was hosted by the Citizen's Trade Campaign folks that brought together some of the prime organizers and organizations, including DAN [Direct Action Network] and a very diverse kind of group of organizations that met and just kind of more or less kept each other somewhat up to date on what people were planning.

(…)

Well, it was a coalition in terms of everyone coming together dealing with the events of the week, for example from the students' perspective, obviously having been hit the hardest, and the students that had been doing civil disobedience and not doing civil disobedience, just been sitting around and getting whacked by the cops, they brought anger and disbelief. Then us just seeing what had happened and the wrongness of how protests had been met. And it was because we were in coalition and had the energy and ability that enabled us to quickly put together a march with 5,000 people. We wanted to go into the no-protest zone on Friday to show we could have protests and that we could have our voices heard. So things happened pretty quickly.

(…)

Things came together incredibly quickly. A wide variety of things happened very quickly, just remarkable how quickly. I guess in terms of true coalition activities, people took ownership, came together and achieved, in a very short time, something that normally takes months to plan and figure out. And that was because everyone had been working together. And this was also something that was also more locally driven. It wasn't people from D.C.

Han Shan, Ruckus Society:

“That’s actually a bigger conversation and a really important thing. That’s something that’s new and something that we saw develop in Seattle to a large degree. There are a lot of groups working in very different ways with different constituencies, and maybe different ultimate goals who nonetheless are recognizing that as the right has come together with various goals, but recognizing they have similar adversaries, at least, we’ve recognized that we need to come together. In Seattle, there were a lot of folks who maybe didn’t work super closely with each other in their discrete strategies, in their tactics that they took to the streets, but tried to at least talk and keep the lines of communication open. I talked to a lot of Labor. I talked to folks who were visibly nervous about who Ruckus was and what we might have planned, who nonetheless showed goodwill and recognized that we were allies in this battle. I think that kind of coming together is a rare thing and it was certainly gratifying.”

Robin Denburg, Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange:

“The coalition, I think, while there were ups and downs, it was very effective in allowing a level of coordination so that the environmental community knew what the labor community was doing and then the labor community would then go back and work out the details, but at least there was some level of coordination and that was exhibited during the week of the WTO when you had one day which was focused on labor, one day which was focused on the environment, one day which was focused on agriculture. If you hadn’t had that, the dialogue and the trust established beforehand, you could have had a hodgepodge of seminars and teach-ins and rallies going on at the same time. So I think it was really effective in that respect. I think it was also effective in terms of creating good relationships between communities that hadn’t normally worked together. In particular for me, working with the faith-based and labor communities was, especially the faith-based community, was a new thing for me, so I think that was effective as well.”

Self-Determination vs. Racism & Sexism (Tommy D, Keith, X) by X.

Because Revolutionary Democracy strives for the full emancipation of all people, the revolutionary democratic movement cannot ignore historical and contemporary differences in oppression and exploitation suffered by different social groups. Communities that have been victimized by colonization directly or indirectly, that have had their land stolen, that were enslaved workers or that are descended from enslaved workers, suffer different degrees of social and political oppressions and particular types of super-exploitation. The legacy of slavery and colonialism continues in the ensemble of present day social relationships and is outwardly manifested as racism and discrimination in its various institutionalized and interpersonal forms. Revolutionary Democracy recognizes the different historical experiences of peoples and communities and their right to determine their future in relation to others, i.e. their right to practice democracy as a people and to control their resources, including the reparations they are owed for centuries of oppression and super-exploitation. In other words, Revolutionary Democracy must include the right to self-determination.

Self-determination is key to overcoming racism and racial segregation and it forms the foundation for genuine coalition-building between communities and organizations of different racial, ethnic, and/or national backgrounds. In the revolutionary democratic movement, coalition-building is based on a foundational respect for the political and cultural integrity of communities with different historically-constituted experiences of oppression and exploitation as well as resistance. The practice of revolutionary democracy is at the core of such an approach because: 1) a revolutionary democratic movement recognizes the right of each group to practice democracy and determine its own process of emancipation and, 2) the practice of self-determination allows for an increasing amount of democracy to be practiced in coalitions of groups that are traditionally segregated from one another, without ignoring the very real political and cultural inequalities that exist between such groups –inequalities that form the basis of anti-democratic power dynamics, and 3) the right to self-determination is the first step to eventually achieving the type of mass equality necessary for a truly democratic society. In this sense, working to practice Revolutionary Democracy in a multi-racial/multi-ethnic society requires self-determination, and the revolutionary democratic movement cannot succeed without it.

Women have also suffered unique forms of oppression and exploitation that are perpetuated in present day social relationships and outwardly manifested as sexism and sex/gender discrimination in its various institutionalized and interpersonal forms. Historically, women have suffered from restricted access to democracy: to the public/civil sphere of society as well as to equality of participation and equality of rights in all areas of society (in the home, workplace, universities, church, etc). In addition, women have been burdened with unequal amounts of unpaid labor (traditionally providing most if not all of the labor in the family including, most significantly, reproductive labor). Even further, women have been denied 1) the right to control their bodies (both directly, as with laws that restrict women’s reproductive freedoms, and indirectly, as with the State’s refusal to prosecute physical and sexual assaults on women), and 2) the right to control their minds (as with formal or informal injunctions on women’s education or participation in the workforce). This denial of democracy has rendered many women in the condition of second class citizens.

Unfortunately, the conditions associated with this denial of democracy have not been adequately addressed by much of the U.S. Left, leading sex/gender inequality to persist or even fester in many of its organizations. And too often women are accused of “divisiveness” when any or all of these issues are raised. Divisiveness is not caused by the struggle for equality and emancipation but by attempts to curtail the struggle. A revolutionary democratic movement must recognize the history and root causes of sex/gender inequality and understand that those conditions must themselves be addressed and overcome in the process of building actual democracy. Therefore the revolutionary democratic movement inherently recognizes the full equality of women but must also strives for full democratic participation by working to subvert the causes of sex/gender inequalities within the movement and in society at large. The strategy of dual power must involve building a revolutionary democratic movement and alternative society that recognizes women’s rights to full democratic participation in all spheres of social life and guarantees women’s rights to control their bodies and minds. Further, the revolutionary democratic movement must strive to address the foundational inequalities in reproductive and unpaid labor in society. Such efforts begin in the movement itself (for example, the movement should provide child care and elderly care that historically are left as women’s burden and responsibility.) Finally Revolutionary Democracy supports the consciousness-raising groups and women-only spaces that have been central to the feminist movement for the last four decades. Consciousness raising groups, in fact, are spaces of democracy, where previously ignored social issues are brought to the fore of attention, leading to new opportunities for the movement as a whole to address persistent inequalities.

Historically, revolutionary movements posited that racism and sexism would be overcome after the revolution, and many people rightfully rejected this formulation. Alternatively, many identity-based movements posit that revolution can not be waged until people in traditionally “privileged” social positions “overcome” their racism and sexism. Revolutionary Democracy, with a process-based approach to revolution, contends that overcoming racism and sexism are essential aspects of the revolutionary process of practicing democracy itself. The revolution is thus in large part the process of overcoming racism, sexism and all other forms of oppression and discrimination that divide people and obstruct the advance of democracy. This is not a process at the individual level; practicing “anti-racism” or “anti-sexism” isn’t centrally a process of becoming a better individual (non-racist). It is instead the process of fighting the material foundation of racism itself in society, a process that will lead to a society of increasingly non-racist and non-sexist individuals. No amount of sensitivity training workshops can end racism or sexism. Similarly, electing a token representative of an oppressed group to an organization’s governing body (or “slotting” a seat for a token representative) will not overcome racism or sexism. These unique oppressions and inequalities are not caused by “ignorant individuals,” they are rooted in material and structural inequality (police profiling, and brutality, the denial of access to quality healthcare and education, limitations placed on access to housing and credit, dual labor markets, limitations on intergenerational transfers of wealth because of legacy of slavery, etc.). The personal ignorance and interpersonal indignities of racism, sexism and homophobia are mostly symptoms of the systemic inequality that reinforce the system’s oppressive character. Racism cannot be cured at the level of the individual. The truism that “racism is taught” misses the more important point: Racism is not just a bad “idea.” Rather, our society is organized to reproduce racial inequality and it is the society itself that needs to be transformed.

Racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of systemic discrimination will not end and democracy will not blossom until the people cooperate to build a new society and, in this process, redress the brutal inequalities borne of history, repairing the foundation of the country which was incorrectly built through the denial of democracy. “Anti-racism” and “anti-sexism” must be developed in the process of establishing revolutionary democracy and through the practice of self-determination and coalition-building. There are no ready-made programs; the revolutionary democratic movement must learn by doing. And it is in the very process of uniting to transform society through a democratic and collective drive towards equality of means for the free development of all that racism, sexism, and other forms of inequality will be confronted not as some abstract wrong but as an obstacle to progress that must be overcome by all.

The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School (Keith) by X.

The Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BART/S) was founded in Harlem by Amiri Baraka to take music, poetry, art and performance out of the academy and into the street. As Baraka put it in a poem “we want poems that wrestle cops into alleyways and take their guns away.” BARTS is a great example of an alternative revolutionary institution that builds dual power and provides a material foundation for revolutionary ideas and culture.

LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) leads the Black Arts parade down 125th Street toward the Black Arts Theater Repertory/School on 130th Street, New York City. (Source: Liberator 5.6 [June 1965], 27)

In 1965 Baraka, with Charles and William Patterson, Askia Toure, Clarence Reed, Johnny Moore and others to open the school. The school received funds from the a Johnson-era anti-poverty program. The funding source did nothing to change the revolutionary character of the school. The mission of BARTS was to build "a repertory theatre in Harlem, as well as a school. As a school it will set up and continue to provide instruction, both practical and theoretical, in all new aspects of the dramatic arts." The school held classes on creative writing, acting and other arts, philosophy, reading, math, and so forth.

While the BARTS itself didn’t last because of financial problems and internal political problems, it launched the Black Arts Movement which became the cultural wing of the Black Power Movement, and it remains one of the most important literary movements in US cultural history.

Alternative institutions and revolutionary culture (Keith, X., Tommy D) by X.

The role of the movement is not merely to compete with the system in the area of “politics” but to build an alternative infrastructure for the production and reproduction of all aspects of cultural and social life. This infrastructure must provide means and opportunities for musicians’ unions, artists’ collectives, writers’ circles, theater troupes, film-making coops, dance groups, fire spinning crews, etc. as well as sports clubs, yoga classes, health and nutrition coops, online support networks, community-based counseling, etc. that provide people with the means of expression needed to live a fulfilling creative life and the social and cultural foundation required to participate actively and meaningfully in the movement for the long term.

For the system to function, people must not only be capable of working under undemocratic and exploitative conditions when they arrive at work or at school, they must also be willing. The powers-that-be cannot rule by force alone; they must rely on a whole system of cultural production (universities, publishing houses, movie studios, churches, TV networks, art foundations, etc.) to make their rule appear good, just or at least inevitable. For the movement to develop we must have alternative institutions which can promote an alternative vision, alternative ideas, and a place to critique and deprogram ourselves from the system.

Too often, the traditional US Left relegates art and culture to the role of temporary interlude in the all important business of politics. Revolutionary Democracy does not draw such a line between culture and politics. Both are essential to the transformation of society. Culture is key to revolution and democracy. When practiced effectively, it encourages the unleashing of individual and collective potential that are suppressed or under-developed in the anti-democratic atmosphere of most of society’s existing institutions and organizations. The revolutionary democratic movement must organize progressive artists, cultural workers and people everywhere to build democratically-run institutions and organizations dedicated to the creative production of art and culture rooted in the experience of the movement, of people’s lives and of the transformative experience that comes with changing the world. The movement must build its own cultural events, theaters, studios, underground clubs, websites, etc. to challenge the backward culture spoon-fed to everyone by the corporate media but more importantly, to spur on, inspire and enlighten all people as they struggle with the concrete challenge of waging revolution in a new way.

A revolutionary party (X, Keith) by X.

In 1997, the city of New Brunswick passed a repressive ordinance that required all parties to be approved and registered by the police in advance (at $20 per permit) if any gifts or money was to be exchanged. This law was obviously targeting the very successful fundraising events of local grassroots groups that the city machine didn’t like (especially the New Brunswick Coalition Against Police Brutality).

Local progressives and revolutionaries decided on a creative revolutionary democratic approach to overturn the law: On one hand, sympathetic attorneys filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the law unconstitutionally violating freedom of speech and assembly. On the other, they immediately organized a "Party Without A Permit." The best local bands were recruited to play (they opposed the law because it threatened their ability to throw their own parties) for a 12 hour festival at Brower Commons - a traditional rallying space at Rutgers University. At the party, organizers symbolically collected pennies to break the law. This event put the music in the forefront and kept political speeches only in between acts and sets (which is unusual for the Left). The crowd was not bored by the speeches (also unusual!) because they took the form of TV commercials in between the main events. The city police did not fine anyone nor try to stop the huge party that drew over a thousand and shut down Main Street.

The movement lawyers were then able to argue that the police were selectively enforcing the law since they took no action at the "Party without a Permit." The city was forced to come up with the silly excuse that the ordinance did not apply on university grounds. Following the same approach, the organizers then planned a "Picnic Without A Permit" in a local park in the heart of the city, inviting families to bring their children to play games and BBQ. Pennies were collected again to break the law, while children played and parents engaged in discussions about police brutality. Once again the police found themselves unable to enforce the law.

The movement lawyers took this back to the court and the city was again forced to make the absurd argument that the law didn’t apply to the parks. As the organizers now prepared to challenge the law at a private party, the exasperated judge in the case overturned the law on constitutional grounds. And the city had to pay for the legal fees!

US Leftists often talk about organizing legal challenges on two fronts, in the courts and in the streets. However, this usually means asking people (in the street) to come to court or hold a protest in front of it. Instead, we organized a mass cultural event that made it possible to gather enough revolutionary democratic social power to challenge the illegitimate law openly. With hundreds of participants at the permit-less events, the police could not enforce the law. If we understand that most laws are designed to protect the system and that the strength of the movement lies in finding ways to organize masses of people to resist the system in creative ways, we can restrict the state’s ability to enforce these laws and even make these laws depend on our strength or weakness. Our lawyers couldn't have won the case before we had proved in the street that the law was unenforceable.

The Party Without A Permit victory also highlighted the lack of public space for free expression in New Brunswick and inspired further efforts to not only challenge oppressive laws but to create performance spaces. The struggle against the permit law provided organizers with experience that they later used to create "Art House" –a monthly cultural event that featured, poetry, hip-hop, bands, and art exhibits. This tradition lives at Tent State University with open, free nightly music events.

Revolution is a process, not an event! (Keith, X., Tommy D) by X.

Instead of “waiting” for the revolution to solve social problems, Revolutionary Democracy holds that revolution involves the process of solving these real problems. The traditional US Left views "the revolution" as an event, to be waited for patiently or to be hastened through frenzied protest or "resistance" activity. Instead, revolutionary democracy puts forward that people will not transform the system after the revolution, they will make the revolution by transforming the system in every aspect: work, school, culture, politics, etc.