Your stomach turns when you see homeless people getting younger and younger, and you wonder if you’re next. Inflated food costs are eating up your paycheck. Your family member can’t afford her medical bills, so you make a GoFundMe so she can survive. You doom scroll through photos of war and destruction wrought by bombs sent by the so-called “lesser evil.”

At some point, maybe recently, something clicked: you realized that this system is not working and something fundamental needs to change. You want to do something—and you want to do it now.

You want a revolution. The question is, how?

The past decades of political and economic instability in the United States have driven millions of people to the same conclusion. Inflation, healthcare costs, war, inequality, and all the other aspects of declining capitalist society are weighing on the consciousness of millions of people. A significant layer of society, especially among young people, has moved towards revolutionary communist ideas.

Within this new generation of communists, many are thinking about communist strategy and tactics for the first time. These new comrades want to know how to organize and fight for a victorious socialist revolution. The Revolutionary Communists of America have often received questions about how we look at mutual aid, what role we think it can play in transforming society, and what political tasks should be prioritized by communists today. Here, we take up some of the many questions around this topic.

What is mutual aid?

Mutual aid is a loosely organized and decentralized phenomenon, without an organization or individual which serves as the standard- bearer. Nonetheless, in the modern context, we believe that Dean Spade provides a workable definition in his 2020 book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis:

More and more ordinary people are feeling called to respond in their communities, creating bold and innovative ways to share resources and support vulnerable neighbors. This survival work, when done in conjunction with social movements demanding transformative change, is called mutual aid … and it produces social spaces where people grow new solidarities. At its best, mutual aid actually produces new ways of living where people get to create systems of care and generosity that address harm and foster well being.

Spade goes on to explain that there are three key elements of mutual aid:

1. Mutual aid projects work to meet survival needs and build shared understanding about why people do not have what they need.

2. Mutual aid projects mobilize people, expand solidarity, and build movements.

3. Mutual aid projects are participatory, solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors.

Similarly, Wikipedia defines mutual aid as “a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.”

Proponents of mutual aid also emphasize that mutual aid is not a new phenomenon, but rather a common human response to crisis.

In terms of concrete examples of mutual aid, the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) famous Free Breakfast For Children program, as well as the Young Lords’ healthcare for the community program are often mentioned. Others have also cited the German Social Democratic Party’s cultural programs in the period prior to World War I as a positive example of mutual aid.

Some forms of mutual aid which have been more common in recent years are activities such as organizing neighborhood supply drives, food drives and community refrigerators, coordinating volunteer grocery delivery, and supplying food and water to protesters.

Where did the idea of mutual aid originate?

The term mutual aid comes from Peter Kropotkin, the 19th century Russian anarchist. Born into an aristocratic landholding family in tsarist Russia, Kropotkin was a polymath with an interest in politics, economics, sociology, zoology, and geography. Like Karl Marx, Kropotkin was a materialist with a keen interest in the scientific method.

Unlike some contemporary proponents of mutual aid, Kropotkin never proposed that mutual aid societies could overcome the state or establish socialism.

In his book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Kropotkin critiqued the emphasis on the “struggle for survival” as opposed to the cooperative model of survival in Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He offered a scathing critique of the bourgeois political order and the theoretical framework established since Hobbes, while anticipating and repudiating social Darwinism. Building on his naturalist scientific observations, Kropotkin examined the development of human societies from prehistory to the modern era.

Unlike some contemporary proponents of mutual aid as an organizational theory and tactical framework, Kropotkin never proposed that mutual aid societies could overcome the state or establish socialism. Nonetheless, he believed that the state is the reason mutual aid groups could not meet the needs of the masses. Kropotkin turned his back on his class and supported mass strikes and worker rebellions. But he makes no reference to mutual aid as a strategy for overthrowing capitalism. In the chapter “Mutual Aid Amongst Ourselves,” he writes:

From the point of view of social economics all these efforts of the peasants certainly are of little importance. They cannot substantially, and still, less permanently, alleviate the misery to which the tillers of the soil are doomed all over Europe.

The key takeaway from his work is that, while human cooperation occurs organically throughout history, the state is mainly responsible for eradicating these natural institutions of egalitarian mutualism, specifically through the institution of private property. In that sense, his ideas turn the Marxist theory of the state on its head. For Marxists, the state is an intrinsic function of a society divided into classes. The “special bodies of armed men” that constitute the state are the product of irreconcilable class conflict; i.e., they are required to preserve the property and power of the ruling class. Whereas, from the anarchist perspective, the state is alien to society, subjectively imposed on it from without.

What is the communist position on mutual aid?

To begin, we believe it is important to distinguish between two differing conceptions of mutual aid.

1. Mutual aid as an organic phenomenon in working-class life.

2. Mutual aid as a political strategy pursued by socialist or communist activists.

In the first sense, mutual aid is simply a phenomenon with many examples in modern history. In times of crisis, when capitalism and its institutions fail to provide for and protect working-class people, it is common for local neighborhoods to take matters into their own hands. While understanding their limitations, Marxists support these efforts and point to them as examples of the instinctive solidarity within the working class—a clear example that there is more to “human nature” than greed and egoism.

On the other hand, there are tendencies within the socialist and communist movement which argue that we should conduct mutual aid as a political strategy for ending capitalism in some form or another. This is the position we seek to address in this document. For the remainder of this article, “mutual aid” will be synonymous with mutual aid as a political strategy, unless otherwise noted.

There may be instances where some forms of mutual aid could play a supplemental, tactical role in the struggle for socialism. However, in considering overall political strategy, communists argue against mutual aid as such, and in favor of Bolshevism—the process of formulating a clear revolutionary program and building a disciplined organization that can carry that program into the broader working class and its organizations. We believe that in order to win the working class, we must offer, not “small deeds” or goods and services, but above all clear ideas about how workers can effectively organize as a class to fight for their interests and ultimately carry through the socialist revolution. We need to offer an effective transitional program: a series of interlinked demands that address the fundamental problems of the working class, all linked to the need for socialist revolution.

We must also emphasize that communists do not stand for a more equitable distribution of the crumbs—the working class deserves quality housing, healthcare, food, and more. We reject the artificial scarcity and limits of the system. As the Irish revolutionary James Connolly put it: “For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth.”

The truth is, all the wealth and productive forces to end poverty for good already exist. There is enough food and housing to go around for everyone, and the technology to mitigate the effects of climate change and to combat disease are within reach. The main obstacle for all of these problems is that this wealth and the means of production are privately owned and controlled. Despite the participation of hundreds of millions of workers to keep things running, those resources are used for the profit of a handful of individuals.

The socialist revolution is necessary to lift humanity out of the barbarism of class society. Ushering in the communist future of humanity will mark the greatest single accomplishment in history. But to achieve such a feat, we need to think scientifically about how revolutions emerge and why they succeed or fail.

Thankfully, there is over a century of experience in the working-class movement to learn from, including the first victorious proletarian revolution, the Russian Revolution. The key to its success—and the missing element in all failed revolutions—was the existence of the Bolshevik Party, which was built, trained, and rooted in the masses before the outbreak of the revolution.

What are the arguments in favor of mutual aid in the communist movement today?

Many who are drawn to mutual aid today see it as a way to win the confidence and sympathy of a wider layer of society, and to make communist politics “relevant” to people’s everyday lives and concerns. This position often argues that by “serving the people,” communists can build trust between ourselves and the broader working class. They argue that workers will not listen to communists unless we “prove ourselves in practice” by meeting their immediate material needs. Proponents of this position do frequently add the caveat that mutual aid efforts alone are insufficient to meet the needs of billions of people, but nonetheless, they believe that this remains the primary strategy for winning the working class to the ideas of communism, while improving people’s lives along the way.

Another position—sometimes referred to as “building dual power”—argues that mutual aid contributes towards building “permanent institutions” outside of capitalism, which could eventually displace the dominant capitalist institutions. It is asserted that, for example, by continuously building medical clinics with the methods of mutual aid, it would be possible to eventually displace the existing for-profit healthcare system. We should note that this conception of “dual power” differs significantly from the classical Marxist use of that term, which we address below.

Based on the questions we have received, the first view—that mutual aid is the best method for sinking roots in the broader population—appears to be more common in the contemporary communist movement in the United States. However, these positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as some argue for both positions simultaneously.

Can we use mutual aid to win people to revolutionary communist ideas?

As we’ve seen, one argument in favor of mutual aid as a political strategy suggests that by conducting mutual aid, communists can bring new people into the communist movement and build a base of communist workers. This would appear to imply that workers who are conservative, liberal, or nonpolitical might reconsider their politics simply after receiving help, in the form of goods and services, from people conducting mutual aid under the banner of communism. For instance, it suggests that by offering to change people’s brake lights or give them free meals, we can win them over to communist ideas. The underlying assumption is that political beliefs are shaped largely through these kinds of small interactions, short conversations, etc.

However, political beliefs are shaped largely by objective historical factors—above all, the experience of life under capitalism, and the inherent instability of the system. People generally do not consider radical ideas—like overthrowing the only economic system they’ve ever known—unless something in their lives pushes them there.

The British Marxist Ted Grant once explained that “events, events, events” are what really drive changes in consciousness. While there is not an automatic relationship between broader economic trends and mass consciousness, at those moments when the crisis of capitalism is on full display, large numbers of people are compelled to reconsider their political beliefs virtually overnight. This occurs in a nonlinear fashion. The sudden rise of the BlackLivesMatter movement in 2020 and the Palestine solidarity movement in 2023 show how large numbers of people can draw new political conclusions virtually overnight.

In view of this historical pattern, we believe that engaging in mutual aid to attempt to “build a movement” or “build a base” represents a search for a shortcut, and fundamentally misunderstands how political consciousness and engagement evolve in the real world. In other words, it is an attempt by small groups of activists to substitute themselves for the broader historical processes that are necessary to create a mass audience for communist ideas.

Can Marxists use mutual aid to gain the trust of the working class?

If fundamentally changing people’s views on society could be achieved simply by providing free meals and charity, then religious institutions such as the Catholic Church should be growing at breakneck speed, as they have been pursuing such tactics for a very long time.

In reality, serious workers know that the problem is the system itself, and they want serious solutions and ideas—not small, short-lived favors. It is not “small deeds” or the heroic acts of individual activists, but rather the cumulative experience of life under capitalism that pushes the working class towards revolutionary conclusions. However, while that experience can make evident the need for a new system, it does not automatically provide a scientific understanding of how to overthrow capitalism and what to replace it with. For that, a clear program based on Marxist theory is required. A revolutionary program explains how the working class can change society. But ideas don’t spread or implement themselves—they require living forces to bring them to fruition. This is why it is important to build a party of trained Marxist cadres, who can provide that theoretical clarity in times of upswing in the movement.

That being said, communists must absolutely prove themselves in practice. Winning the political confidence of the working class is a prerequisite for the socialist revolution. During the lead-up to the socialist revolution, Marxists must be the most resolute and effective class fighters. Fighting in partial struggles serves to make workers aware of their collective power to change society. This is why we must fight for reforms as part of the struggle for the socialist revolution. But this flows, first and foremost, from having correct ideas and perspectives combined with a wide range of activity that can mobilize the working class itself, including class-independent electoral campaigns, working within the trade unions, organizing mass rallies, meetings, and demonstrations, engaging in united fronts and mass movements, etc. The most militant layers of the working class will turn to the forces of Marxism to the degree that the organized revolutionaries are offering a way forward for the class struggle. There are no easy roads, no shortcuts, and no gimmicks that can achieve such an enormous task.

Can mutual aid play any role in the revolutionary process?

Marxists do not view the question of “mutual aid” moralistically. We begin with a scientific examination of societal change, and in particular, revolutionary change. The experience of the last 100-plus years shows that a revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism is possible only when a favorable convergence of objective factors coincides with the presence of a revolutionary party. To bring about a successful conclusion, such a party must be prepared in advance and be positioned to intervene consciously and deliberately in the revolutionary process.

So while Marxists agree that mutual aid can, in principle, play a certain role in the overall revolutionary process, it is not a panacea, and its limitations should be clearly understood. Those who participate in mutual aid, whether in response to crises or as conscious communist activists, are clearly seeking to help people and are driven by the best intentions. But history shows that good intentions alone are insufficient—we need correct ideas and strategy as well.

We must, therefore, ask: do advocates of these methods clearly explain that the fundamental problem facing the working class is the capitalist system itself? Does it connect struggles for reforms with the need for capitalism’s revolutionary overthrow? Is mutual aid activity combined with the building of a revolutionary party? What kind of forces would be necessary to conduct mutual aid in a meaningful way?

The answer to these questions can determine the actual role of mutual aid. If it does not clearly explain that capitalism is the problem, what is the goal of the movement? If it creates illusions that the mutual aid movement can solve the problems facing people within the limits of capitalism, is a revolution even necessary?

Some historical examples provide further clarity. As explained above, in addition to its political newspapers, parliamentary activity, and trade unionism, the German Social Democratic Party had a massive presence in the cultural life of the working class. Writing in Jacobin, Adam Sacks explains that “far from a staid, wooden affair, life in the SPD was a lively, vibrant expression of the party’s values. Social Democrats formed gymnastics associations and cycling clubs, choir societies and chess clubs. They organized youth activities, opened grocery stores, and offered funeral arrangements.”

The scope of these programs was impressive, and surely must have further cemented the party’s standing within the working class. There was nothing wrong with these programs in principle. However, we must remember that when revolution swept Germany in 1918 and 1923, the party did not lead the working class to power. While it had a massive apparatus and was engaged in a huge range of activities, the party had politically degenerated over the previous period into a reformist organization that ended up saving capitalism rather than overthrowing it. These defeats led directly to the rise of fascism and the crushing of what had been the world’s strongest labor movement. What the working class tragically lacked was not more mutual aid programs, but rather, a tightly organized communist leadership fighting for a revolutionary program.

We should note that in the same era, the Bolshevik Party achieved the greatest victory of the workers’ movement to date—the Russian Revolution—and did so without any significant amount of work that could be described as mutual aid. Rather, they succeeded in winning over the working class through their tireless agitation and propaganda in favor of a clear revolutionary socialist program.

Can mutual aid “build a movement?”

Some people suggest that mutual aid efforts can build a kind of permanent movement, eventually resulting in system change at an undefined point. This viewpoint may stem from a desire, common among activists in the United States, to understand why elemental movements like the 2020 George Floyd protests dissipated without changing anything fundamental, and how that can be avoided in the future.

But the fact is that social movements are never permanent—they rise and fall. We must accept this reality. During exceptional moments, the working class can mobilize over a certain period of time. But in general, life under capitalism makes it difficult to be politically active. Workdays are long, and some people have more than one job or must work overtime. There is also the time used to commute to and from work, household chores, and childcare. Capitalist society itself cuts across the ability of people to have time to be politically active in a sustained way.

The socialist revolution, with the working class taking power, would reduce the workweek without loss of pay, provide free, quality child care, and socialize housework. This would allow sustained political involvement by the population. Until this is accomplished, we understand that the problems and contradictions of capitalism itself eventually push people to fight for change, giving rise to social explosions. However, unless the raging river of class struggle is channeled into the final overthrow of the system, it will eventually recede back into its banks. This being the case, our goal should be to participate in and push movements as far as possible, using them as a way to build the forces of revolution and to educate the class for future battles that can end the system once and for all.

Does mutual aid address the question of how the working class must deal with the capitalist state?

If one studies the evolution of capitalism from the Renaissance to the present day, one can clearly see accumulation of economic power and increased centralization of this power. We also see the centralization of political power in the form of capitalist states. All of history shows that the capitalist state will not simply fade away of its own accord. A centralized power can only be defeated by a force that understands the nature of that power. The large and diverse working class must unite and coordinate its struggle to beat the big banks, corporations, and their state apparatus. Otherwise, the centralized power will divide the workers and defeat them.

As we have seen, there are many proponents of mutual aid, and they often have differing justifications and theoretical backgrounds. However, none of them approach this question scientifically.

For example, Dean Spade writes in the very last paragraph of his book:

As we deliver groceries, participate in meetings, sew masks, write letters to prisoners, apply bandages, facilitate relationship skills classes, learn how to protect our work from surveillance, plant gardens, and change diapers, we are strengthening our ability to outnumber the police and military, protect our communities, and build systems that make sure that everyone can have food, housing, medicine, dignity, connection, belonging, and creativity in their lives. That is the world we are fighting for. That is the world we can win.

There are many confused ideas in this passage, but we should highlight the hazy and lackadaisical attitude towards the question of the state. The implication is that as long as we vigorously pursue mutual aid, at some undefined point we will be in a position to deal with the state using undefined methods. But in point of fact, the working class always outnumbers the state forces—the question is what kind of program is necessary to unite the working class in struggle against the capitalist state. For an in-depth look at these questions, we recommend Lenin’s State and Revolution and “Marxism and the State” by Alan Woods.

Can mutual aid fill the gaps of capitalism?

If we examine the real scope of poverty and want worldwide, it is clear that the problems of capitalism are systemic in nature. In the United States alone, 44 million people are food insecure, and this number increases every year. This, despite the fact that the country produces enough food to feed the entire world population. Over half a million Americans are homeless, while 15 million homes sit empty. And over 80 million Americans have inadequate health care coverage. Things are even worse on a world scale.

Individuals or small organizations simply cannot resolve these enormous problems within the limits of capitalism—they are not caused by insufficient sharing of resources by and within the working class. The real problem is that, by definition, the ruling class owns and controls the means of production and hoards the majority of the wealth generated by the working class. Even a workers’ party of millions could not address these issues if it remained within the limits of capitalism, much less a decentralized array of small mutual aid networks.

Experience shows that even small-scale mutual aid programs require a significant amount of time and resources—and the volunteers do not have infinite reserves of energy. Burnout is common, and mutual aid groups frequently encounter the problem of dwindling funds in the long term, as it is generally much harder to sustain a mutual aid network after periods of acute crisis have ended.

On this point, we can let former mutual aid activists speak for themselves. A 2023 study called “‘Fuck Capitalism:’ Mutual Aid Participants’ Experiences of Burnout During the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic” provides illuminating quotes which demonstrate the extreme difficulty of sustaining mutual aid programs:

I had very high hopes… and then it felt like pretty unsustainable.” This participant also visually illustrated their struggle in the work as “bumping up against walls” and burned out after seeing “zero progress.” Other participants expressed cynicism in the work, suggesting their work was fruitless with respect to the social aspects of their community.

Another activist said:

Because it’s, you know, when I’m donating to a nonprofit, I’m just like giving money and trusting that those people are, are the ones connecting with people experiencing these challenges and are using that money in a wise way. But when I am the one who is like reading the testimonials, saying like, I can’t feed my seven-year-old, unless someone gives me money and it’s, you know, it’s up to me to figure out how to get that person money. And then just seeing like literally thousands of stories like that, way more than I can manage and way more than our team of 25 people can manage.

To actually meet the needs of the global population, the only solution is for the working class to take ownership and control of the economy, and to organize a rational plan in the interests of humanity. Only expropriation of the commanding heights of the economy by a workers’ government can prepare the ground to begin to meet everyone’s needs.

We can take the Cuban Revolution as a positive example. Though its workers’ state is headed by a bureaucracy that threatens its existence, it is proof that systemic problems can be solved by a rational plan:

At their peak, these gains of the revolution included: free medical care; free dental care; free child care; rents which are a maximum of ten percent of a family’s income; free meals in schools; supervised after-school activities; inexpensive lunches in workplaces; socialized care for the elderly, including day-centers, meals and pensions; free amateur sports programmes; free museums and cultural activities; state support for amateur poets, artists, musicians and writers. (Martín and Roberts, Permanent Revolution in Latin America, 2018)

Additionally, the adult literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8%. This is the result of a massive literacy campaign where thousands of students were sent to the countryside to teach peasants how to read and write. A project of this magnitude could only be planned by a workers’ state that controls the major levers of the economy.

Meanwhile, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 8.4 million American adults (4.1%) are functionally illiterate, and only 79% have basic literacy skills like paraphrasing and comparing and contrasting written information. All this in the wealthiest country in the world.

Cuba has the second highest concentration of doctors per 1,000 inhabitants (5.91). And, Cuba lowered its infant mortality rate from 78.8 deaths per 1,000 births pre-revolution, all the way down to 5.93. This is lower than the USA, which has a rate of 6.3 deaths per 1,000 births.

Despite its backward economic conditions, relative isolation from the rest of the capitalist world, and sanctions from the USA, Cuba was able to make incredible gains. With an internationally planned economy that can harness the wealth of the advanced capitalist countries and develop production even further, the standard of living in every country will soar.

Can we overthrow capitalism by “building dual power organizations?”

Some mutual aid organizations seek to “build a new society in the midst of the old one.” This is not a new idea. There have been attempts in the past to contrive a “perfect” society by artificially building communities that function “outside” of capitalism—from the Owenite utopian communities in the 19th century, to the communes that proliferated in the 60s and 70s, to certain “intentional communities” today. While it may be possible to achieve a relative degree of separation from the market on an extremely small scale, it is not possible to do so in an absolute sense. Furthermore, it requires long work hours and the renunciation of the benefits that come from living within a technologically advanced society.

The classical utopian socialists conducted ambitious projects on a scale far greater than any mutual aid project today, sometimes involving thousands of people at a time. They improved working conditions, established schools and childcare, and were abolitionists decades before the US Civil War. However, these conceptions of socialism never came anywhere close to replacing capitalism. Ultimately, a replacement for capitalism must advance production. Only this can lay the material basis of superabundance that can allow for genuine socialism. And this requires careful planning and coordination on an international scale.

These “model societies” cannot compete with the efficiency of the market economy, and cannot build a technologically advanced society, which requires the complex global supply chains and large-scale industry that capitalism has created. As a result, they generally make life harder on their inhabitants, not easier. As Engels explained in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, the program of Marxism, or scientific socialism, explains that instead of trying to turn the clock back towards pre-capitalist methods of production, the working class must take control of the powerful productive capacity from the capitalists and plan production rationally for our own interests. This is the essence of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Marx wrote about this as early as 1851, analyzing the dead end of attempts to divert the class struggle into “doctrinaire experiments, exchange banks, and workers’ associations, hence into a movement in which it renounces the revolutionizing of the old world by means of the latter’s own great, combined resources, and seeks, rather, to achieve its salvation behind society’s back, in private fashion, within its limited conditions of existence, and hence necessarily suffers shipwreck.”

There are some mutual aid organizations that would agree with the idea that we need to win a battle with the capitalists. They say that by building an organization separate from capitalism, where workers learn to run things for themselves and solve their own problems, they are “building dual power” so they can eventually fight the capitalists and overthrow their system altogether. This differs completely from the Marxist conception of dual power. For Marxists, dual power is an emergent stage in the revolutionary process when the capitalist state has been greatly weakened—but still exists—while at the same time, the embryo of a workers’ state—in the form of mass workers’ councils—is coming into being. Periods of dual power are unstable and temporary. By its very nature, it poses a massive threat to capitalism. Either the workers’ councils must consciously crush the capitalist state and establish a workers’ state, or be crushed by the reconstituted state. Time is of the essence in a revolution, and only a Bolshevik Party, prepared in advance, can put a decisive end to the old order and avoid the restoration of the status quo.

Time and again throughout history, workers spontaneously form workers’ councils in revolutionary situations. They tend to start as elected strike committees that make decisions on the fly, such as coordinating distribution of essential supplies and services for striking workers. As struggles expand, workers realize that linking strikes and occupations together makes them stronger, and they elect coordinating committees on a larger and larger scale. Eventually, entire workplaces and neighborhoods elect representatives that meet in scaled-up bodies representing millions of people.

It may be tempting to try to form workers’ councils as soon as possible, before a revolutionary situation has actually occurred. However, organizations that do this are making a serious mistake: they are trying to substitute themselves for the mass movement. The difference between a mutual aid-style “dual power” organization and a real situation of revolutionary dual power is that the former is disconnected from any movement, while the latter is formed by the creativity and energy of the masses themselves.

If revolutionaries choose to spend their time and resources trying to build “dual power,” we will fail to do what is really necessary: train communist cadres and build networks of action that can participate in mass councils when they form organically, fighting to win them to a revolutionary plan of action. Training these cadres takes a serious investment of time and energy, and must be done in advance. Once a revolutionary situation breaks out, it’s too late to improvise! Revolutions may erupt spontaneously, but the training of cadres is anything but spontaneous. Waiting until a revolutionary situation has opened is a recipe for tragedy, bloodshed, and defeat.

What is the difference between mutual aid and charity? Where do the resources that advocates want to “share” come from?

A common refrain in mutual aid circles is “Solidarity, not charity.” Charity is defined as the rich giving money to the poor, and doing it in a way that makes the rich look good and the recipients look bad. Charity reinforces all kinds of false ideas—in particular, the idea that poverty is not caused by capitalism, but rather by the way poor people live their lives.

Mutual aid is conceived of as a collective effort by a social movement to improve conditions. But where do the resources that help people come from? All the wealth of society comes from human labor being applied to the natural resources of the earth. Under capitalism, the workers are only paid in wages and benefits for part of the value they create, while the surplus product ends up in the pockets of the capitalists.

The class struggle is ultimately a battle over what happens to the surplus product: how much of it goes to ordinary people and how much goes to the wealthy? How society’s wealth is divided is conditioned by many factors, including the current stage of consciousness of the working class, its willingness to fight, and the quality and strength of its organizations and leaders.

We all understand that the ruling class will not fund the revolution. This means that any sharing done by working people requires workers to tighten their own belts in order to help other people. Labor unions, aid to striking workers, publication of the revolutionary press, and other such needs are only funded by the sacrifice of the working class. Such sacrifices are necessary for the class struggle. But making do with the crumbs of capitalism is not our aim. We seek to transform the world entirely, using all the wealth of society to ensure a high quality of life for everyone.

Reforms are used by the ruling class to pacify the workers, and can only be wrenched from them when workers enter into struggle. Historically, the stronger and more revolutionary a movement is, the more reforms will be given. But as long as the capitalists remain in power, even the most sweeping reforms are not guaranteed forever. When the struggle eventually cools down or is defeated, the ruling class invariably seeks to reverse and undermine any gains made by the workers.

What can we learn from the Black Panther Party and their efforts at mutual aid?

The comrades who formed the Black Panther Party in 1966 were courageous fighters. They stepped up to fight capitalism and tried to find a way forward, but there were no genuine revolutionary Marxists who could offer them a serious method and strategy. The older generation of revolutionaries—within the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party—had degenerated towards Stalinism and sectarianism. Given the circumstances, the Black Panther Party did the best they could.

Many of their programs to serve breakfast to children and provide access to healthcare were popular. But we must also be honest that, in the broad scope, these programs were a drop in the bucket. The BPP’s free breakfast program, for example, was dwarfed even by the federal nutrition assistance program, which itself is far from adequate. Most importantly, in the end, as subsequent history shows, these programs were not sufficient to help build lasting revolutionary organizations, link them to the masses, expand their influence, and help mobilize the masses to protect them from state repression.

As long as capitalism continues, millions will go hungry every day. It is not the revolutionary party’s role to fill the gaps of the bourgeois state—it is to end the rule of the bourgeoisie entirely and bring the workers to power as a class.

We must also honestly acknowledge that the Black Panther Party did not successfully overthrow capitalism or build a lasting organization. In our view, they suffered from unclear and inconsistent ideas. As a result, they never connected with the wider working class, which is the only force that can take control of society. While they tried to unite various organizations, they never made an effort to connect with, win over, and unite the trade unions, which were fighting many militant battles and were wide open to revolutionary ideas.

Mistakes in theory lead to mistakes in practice. Their mishmash of ideas led to all kinds of confusing zigzags, from adventurism—such as ambushing cops with small groups of people—to Black nationalism and separatism, reformism, and collaboration with the Democratic Party. At every zig and every zag, members were demoralized and dropped out of the movement. Many members even engaged in violence against each other, sowing extreme disunity. As a result, the party stayed small and isolated from the broader working class.

A mechanism to correct these issues was also not in place, since the BPP had neither democracy nor centralism. Instead, decisions were made top-down. Democracy is not just a nice concept; in order to effectively fight against repression, a party requires unity, and real unity is only won through political conviction. That requires long-term, serious efforts in education, along with freedom of discussion and majority-rules decision making. Instead, the BPP had confusion, cliques, and bureaucratic expulsions. These all were huge cracks in their unity, which the FBI exploited and used to destroy them.

Ultimately, the leadership of the BPP split, and their public support plummeted. Their funding, which came from celebrity donations and black business owners instead of the support of workers and the youth, dried up. They made up for it with methods like dealing drugs and robbing nightclubs until their demise in 1982. What J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI once called “the greatest threat to the internal security” of America fizzled out.

In the end, mutual aid programs did not prevent their destruction. They also did not have a lasting political effect on the people that they served. This means they did not construct organizations to lead struggles and fight for the future transformation of society. In all the cities where the BPP was active, the Democrats completely dominated in the 1970s and beyond.

The clear lesson is that programs that “serve the people” are not sufficient in and of themselves. Only clear ideas can build a lasting revolutionary party. Without them, the Black Panther Party was torn apart.

What was Lenin’s position on mutual aid?

Some of the mutual aid groups that have appeared in recent years describe themselves as Leninist. This growth of interest in the figure of Lenin is a hugely positive indication of the direction of the US communist movement. However, it is necessary to clarify exactly what Lenin believed on the question of Marxist strategy.

As we have seen, the idea of “serving the people” is not new. Before Bolshevism, there was Narodnism, a form of utopian socialism that dominated the Russian socialist movement in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Many people today are not aware that Russian Marxism—what was later termed Bolshevism, or Leninism—emerged in conscious opposition to the utopian theories of the Narodniks. The Narodniks primarily embraced political assassination and other forms of individual terrorism, which the Marxists argued against. But another wing of the Narodnik movement bore close resemblance to the mutual-aid advocates of today, emphasizing the importance of “small deeds” such as organizing soup kitchens and literacy campaigns.

Lenin did not write explicitly on this matter. But in her memoirs, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and comrade, recalls an episode that is representative of Lenin’s attitude towards it:

The question came up as to what ways we should take. Somehow general agreement was lacking. Someone said that work on the Illiteracy Committee was of great importance. Vladimir Ilyich laughed, and his laughter sounded rather harsh (I have never heard him laugh that way again). “Well, if anyone wants to save the country by working in the Illiteracy Committee,” he said, “let him go ahead.” (Quoted in Bolshevism by Alan Woods)

On the other hand, Lenin did write extensively on how communists should organize and engage with the working class. In his classic works on revolutionary strategy “Where to Begin?” and What Is to Be Done? Lenin boldly argues the need to build a network of professional revolutionaries grounded in Marxist theory—in other words, a Marxist party rooted in the working class. As he keenly observed as early as 1901, it would be “too late to form the organization in times of explosion and outbursts; the party must be in a state of readiness to launch activity at a moment’s notice.” It was precisely the fulfillment of this plan that guaranteed the success of the Russian Revolution, sixteen years later. We highly recommend that all communists read these works today.

What is the role of leadership in the communist movement?

Another key issue that proponents of mutual aid generally do not deal with is the need to build working-class leadership, in the form of a revolutionary party. The working class is not homogeneous; it is made up of very different kinds of people. There are the more farsighted, class-conscious elements, and there are those with deep illusions in the capitalist system.

Whether one cares to admit it or not, the working class and social movements always have leaders, regardless of whether those individuals identify as such or not. One cannot unite the power of many and fuse it into a single force without leaders. The real question is this: who are the leaders and how are they selected? Have they studied history and theory so as to help guide the future movements in the right direction? Or is the leadership made up of people who have illusions in the system, who have not absorbed the lessons of the past?

History contains countless examples of revolutionary movements crashing against the rocks of reaction due to the weakness of the leadership. For just one contemporary example, we should study the Sudanese Revolution. In Sudan, a revolutionary movement arose between 2019-2021, and the masses fought very hard. However, the bourgeois-liberal leadership did not consciously direct the working class to the tasks that were necessary to achieve victory, and no alternative Marxist leadership had been built up in the preceding period. Eventually, exhaustion set in and the reactionary forces defeated the movement and plunged the country into vicious civil war. This is just one of the many examples that demonstrates the decisive need for theory, program, and leadership in the struggle for a better society.

What is the top priority for revolutionaries today?

Revolution is in our future. Across the world, capitalism is entering an unparalleled crisis, prompting a revival of the class struggle. There has never been a more favorable time to fight for a socialist transformation of society. More Americans than ever, especially among the youth, are looking for revolutionary ideas. A 2024 poll found that 70% of Americans believe that the “political and economic system” needs “major changes” or needs to be “torn down entirely!”

In view of this, we aim to win the working class to the program of socialist revolution, and lead it to total victory over capitalism in our lifetime. To succeed, it is paramount that we learn from previous revolutionary epochs—above all, the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The history of Bolshevism provides an instructive example of how an initially very small number of revolutionaries managed to build their forces into a mass party that eventually won the support of virtually the entire Russian working class. But it was not through offering goods and services or physically providing the things people needed that they won the support of the working class. It was primarily the ideas, the program, and the demands that the Bolshevik cadres put forward that showed the working class how to advance their interests as a class.

The Bolsheviks succeeded in sinking roots into the working class and became a trusted current of the workers’ revolutionary movement primarily on the basis of their agitation and propaganda. Bolshevik orators and authors of leaflets and revolutionary newspapers convinced the mass of the workers—starting with the most advanced layers—that the working class would have to take control into its hands if the masses were to achieve demands such as “bread, peace, and land!”

In his masterpiece, “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder, Lenin sought to generalize the lessons of the Russian Revolution, explaining that the approach of the Bolshevik Party was to make use of any and all opportunities to build the influence of Marxism within the workers’ movement. Trade union work, electoral campaigns, mass mobilizations, and labor actions are just some of the fields of activity revolutionaries must be prepared to engage in in the coming period. In order to fully take advantage of the many opportunities that are arising, we need to urgently build a strong revolutionary communist party that can carry out that kind of work, starting by organizing among the tens and hundreds of thousands of people who are already open to these ideas.

That is the task which the RCA has set itself. We are fighting to rapidly organize ourselves and our peers and coworkers into communist cells, to study Marxist ideas and working class history, to intervene in movements, and to learn to communicate our ideas to all layers of the working class, in order to prepare to carry these ideas and lessons to a much larger audience as the class struggle continues to heat up. We seek to build teams of trained communists in every union, major workplace, campus, and working-class neighborhood, who can start to methodically win political authority among their broader periphery.

If we keep our eyes on the prize, learn the lessons of past revolutions, and continue to steadfastly build the revolutionary party, we can lead the working class to overthrow capitalism in our lifetime.