First Published: Revolutionary Communist Youth, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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We couldn’t help noticing the other day a fanciful newspaper in our pile of National Enquirers and other sensationalist rags. Calling itself “The Young Communist, Revolutionary Student Brigade National Newspaper,” and clearly written for themselves alone, this liberal trash is most revealing. We think that the articles contained in the paper expose themselves for the most part, and for this reason we have re-printed a pure gem in this issue of Revolutionary Communist Youth, their “Saturday Night Fever” review. Still, we would like to call some points to our readers’ attention, as well as correct some errors which seem to have slipped past the liberal liars on their proofreading staff.
They are hysterical that an overwhelming majority of “their” Brigade still looks to the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) as the Party of the U.S. working class, and still looks to communism, not reformism, as the way forward. (Readers are encouraged to look at the list of RCYB chapters elsewhere in the paper.) To quote from one of their articles–which sounds more like a title deed to a piece of property than anything else: “You don’t own our organization.” Quite true! Well put. Nor would we want to “own” your little club any more than we would your sellout politics.
Pimping off the overall positive contributions the Revolutionary Student Brigade made before the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade was formed won’t work.
They may be able to mislead a handful and may try to drag the name Revolutionary Student Brigade through their reactionary mud, but the resurrected version of the Revolutionary Student Brigade shares nothing in common with the RSB which became an influential force on college campuses throughout the country, except the name.
The YC (Young Coward) later emits a goulash of edited quotes and pure dung. They “quote” the RCYB: “Who do we want in this organization? Do we want militant fighters? No, we want communists.” We’d just like to point out to these Peter Pans that the words “people who are just” originally came between the words “Want” and “militant fighters”–in other words: “Who do we want in this organization? Do we want people who are just militant fighters? No, we want communists?” And, yes, we’ll stand by the full quote. And that’s the point, not all militant fighters are communists, but all genuine communists are militant fighters.
In addition, if the RCYB is so busy “Refusing to join with the struggles students are waging, [that they] are forced to simply ignore them” we’d like to know why over half of the photos of “students’ struggles” from their paper came from struggles built by RCYB chapters where people supposedly can’t stop the “sinful” habit of reading Marxist books.
And, speaking of photos, we’d like to call our readers’ attention to one on their back page. Under the headline “War in the Horn of Africa,” this little infantile disorder they call a communist newspaper exposes clearly which side of the war they support: un-captioned, one of their photos shows the fascist Ethiopian junta’s troops preparing for battle against the liberation forces. Their logic behind this was that no one would ever know who the picture was of, and, after all, the picture does show Ethiopians with guns, so what the hell...
To the charge that we promote battles which WE consider important, we respond with a proud “Guilty as charged!” The struggles the RCYB considers important include both those actual struggles people are waging, and those which people are not already engaged in.
To be divorced from reality might bring a light feeling to the head (and the YC is a little disappointingly lightweight), but its consequences can be serious. They write: “The capitalists provide all the shocks the people need.” True, the capitalists, their system, and their economic crisis “shake” people up, and call into question whether capitalism is the best of all possible worlds, or whether this society needs some drastic changes. But to say that this is “all” that is needed is wrong. Not only is this system in need of a basic shake-up, but people’s thinking, too, needs to be shaken up. Just look at the I960’s for proof. If anyone thinks that people’s heads didn’t go through some big changes at that time, they should apply for membership in the Reactionary Sniveling Brats (RSB). Debating ideas and changing people’s thinking will be one part of making revolution; and a crucial one. Marxist theory and theoretical struggle are key, for as V.I. Lenin, the great leader of the Russian Revolution, said: “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”
One final point. The exodus of these people from the RCYB was not as they call it “a setback.” It was a tremendous step in the correct, forward direction. While members of the RCYB have taken a leap forward in forming a national communist youth organization, these hacks are fleeing backward like cockroaches scurrying from the light. Their politics have been exposed in the light of Marxism, and their real problem is that what they can’t lead won’t follow them.