Revolutionaire Eenheid (Revolutionary Unity), a youth organization based in the Netherlands; interviewed Prof. Jose Maria Sison

In their first series, Prof.Sison talks about Theory and Practice.

Transcript:

To have a revolutionary movement you must have theory. And of course it’s not enough to have theory. Neither can you make revolution without the mass movement, no? So there is a dialectical relationship between theory and practice of building a mass movement.https://www.facebook.com/revolutionaireeenheid/videos/785843481589832/

Now, when I say you must have theory you know, suitable to the era of modern imperialism, and proletarian revolution, which aims at proletarian socialist revolution, you have to have the theory of Marx and Engels, through Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. And Mao is very important because he answers the questions about modern revisionism. When people try impress you or discourage you that socialism is dead, no, it’s capitalism that is dying! Socialism will resurged. You know how to answer, how to take care of problems that will crop up in new socialist societies. Because you’ve been told it’s impossible, that only for a short time that it will stand. But all new things, especially big new things like new social formations, sometimes have some setbacks.

The French revolution occurred in the later part of the 18th century but the French [got their] they realized many of the democratic rights only in the 1920s, because after the French revolution you have the Thermidorian reaction, the empire building by Napoleon, then the restoration of the monarchy.

So, you must have theory. I’ve already cited the theory. That’s ideological work. Then it’s not enough to have ideological work. You must do political work. The party itself, or pre-Party formation, if there’s no Party yet, has to recruit more members. But you are after the mass. Those who join the pre-Party formation, or the full pledge Party, must be able to work within certain mass organizations. So the mass organizations for various types of people, classes of people, and sectors, they have to be formed, because they become the hard-core of the mass movement. Mass movement always includes the advanced part, organized, highly conscious, according to the general political line, and those in the middle. They still need to develop. And there are the backward, they [are] spontaneous they join, when they see issues interesting to them, they join up. The challenge for you is to win them over. To keep them steady in the mass movement.