“The publication of an all-Russia political newspaper must be the main line by which we may unswervingly develop, deepen and expand the organisation” – V.I Lenin
It is only one year since we relaunched the Revolutionary Communist – the organ of the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland – as a bimonthly publication. And it was only three years ago that we launched our first publication, the Marxist Voice, as a twice-yearly paper. Now, with Issue 12, we are pleased to announce that the Revolutionary Communist is taking another important step forward: from this issue onwards, it will be published every month.
Let us be clear from the outset. The road ahead of us is long, and we are under no illusions that it is otherwise. After all, our aim is nothing less than the overthrow of Irish capitalism and the construction of a Socialist United Ireland.
But the progress we have made in such a short period is a testament to the strengthening of our forces – and to the growing thirst for revolutionary ideas among workers and young people across Ireland.
Step by step, the forces of communism are advancing!
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Revolutionary movements
In fact, the last year has been a period of rapid developments – both in the world political situation and for the forces of revolutionary communism in Ireland and internationally.
Only last September, across Europe, we saw the “Block Everything” movement, which began in France and culminated in the Italian general strike against the genocide in Gaza.
In Minneapolis, we witnessed an effective uprising against ICE, as workers and young people took it upon themselves to defend their neighbours from the uniformed thugs unleashed by Donald Trump. In Ireland and Britain, far-right riots have provoked significant counter-protests, drawing huge crowds – in Belfast, for example, larger than anything seen in the city for a decade or more.
In the South of Ireland, just a few months ago, hauliers and farmers demonstrated that militant action pays off. By bringing the country to the brink of a standstill, they wrested significant concessions from the government and, in the process, left a lasting imprint on the consciousness of workers who are themselves grappling with the cost-of-living crisis.
Last but not least, we have seen the ‘Gen Z’ revolutions that have rocked country after country in Southeast Asia and beyond.
The pattern is unmistakable. Hundreds of thousands and millions of people around the world are being pushed into struggle by the ever-deepening crisis of world capitalism.
Revolutionary party
Unfortunately however, one key lesson emerges from all these inspiring struggles and class battles: militancy and a willingness to fight are not, in themselves, enough to carry through a root-and-branch transformation of society.
The unfortunate truth is that even when these movements have not been choked off by the reformism of the official organisations of the working class – and even when they have succeeded in overthrowing governments – they have so far resulted in little more than a change of faces at the top of society. All the while, the oppression, exploitation and misery of the masses continues unabated.
The point is that, as Lenin explained in the period leading up to the Russian Revolution of October 1917, if capitalism is to be overthrown and socialism successfully established, workers and young people need an essential weapon in their arsenal: a revolutionary organisation, built in the years and decades preceding the revolution.
This is the most important task facing genuine revolutionaries today.
Once we understand that capitalism is in a profound crisis; once we recognise that class struggle is increasingly on the order of the day; and that the forces of revolution and of counter-revolution are developing in embryo side-by-side – then it becomes paramount that we carry the fight to build a revolutionary organisation with renewed determination.
Revolutionary press
The pressing question, though, is: how can such a party be built?
This is the precise question that Lenin tackles in his article Where to Begin?, which we reprint on the centre page of the current issue. We encourage all our readers and supporters to read, study and discuss it, drawing out its key lessons for our struggles of today.
In answering those who belittled the need for organisation, Lenin wrote:
“The immediate task of our Party is not to summon all available forces for the attack right now, but to call for the formation of a revolutionary organisation capable of uniting all forces and guiding the movement in actual practice and not in name alone.”
Lenin identifies the paper as the key tool through which such unity of revolutionary forces can be forged.
By functioning as a collective propagandist, agitator and organiser, the revolutionary paper can be used to meet workers and young people interested in communism, train a new layer of revolutionary Marxists, and intervene more effectively in the workers’ movement.
Finally, through the very process of producing and distributing a revolutionary paper, Lenin explains, an organisation of “agents” of exactly the kind needed to form the basis of a revolutionary party can be created.
The paper, he therefore concludes, is “the main thread which, if followed, would enable us steadily to develop, deepen, and extend [the] organisation.”
Join the RCI!
It is for these reasons that we believe the relaunching of the Revolutionary Communist as a monthly paper is an important milestone in the development of our work in Ireland on a truly national basis.
Moving from bimonthly to monthly means that the Revolutionary Communist will now produce twice as much analysis of events in Irish politics and society, with the aim of addressing each month the key questions facing our movement. In turn, this will push the publication rate on our website – communism.ie – to an almost daily basis.
It also means that, through our subscription system, our website, and the stalls run regularly by our supporters across the length and breadth of this island, we will be able to sell hundreds more copies every month and meet dozens more people interested in joining us in the fight for communism.
In fact, much more is actually possible. Under the hammer blows of events, hundreds and thousands of young people are drawing revolutionary conclusions. Organised and equipped with a revolutionary Marxist programme, the budding revolutionaries of today can coalesce into a force that will tomorrow provide the core of a mass revolutionary party.
We have taken many important steps over the last three years. From a group of a dozen or so comrades putting together the first issue of our paper, we now have close to 100 organised Revolutionary Communists forming a dozen branches around Ireland – and supporting a full-time apparatus of three professional revolutionaries and a small centre for our work in Dublin.
We have every confidence that the new Revolutionary Communist will provide us with yet another tool for building the revolutionary party – growing, by ones and twos, the forces of communism on this island through the first 100, then 200, and beyond.
So, if you are reading these pages and you are not yet organised, what are you waiting for? Together, we have a world to win!
