Different from what’s produced by the immediate situation, and different from what’s reproduced by the system

From the “Second Grade Strategy Manual”

Even though it’s the product of an antagonistic reality, strategy has the potential to produce a new and collectively shared perspective. We see it as a path out of an antagonistic situation. Revolutionary strategy has to make sense and be consistent enough to follow even as the situation evolves. It must be sustainable and coherent to effectively hold things together and “prevent unraveling”.

Since the objective is to build Popular Power as it progresses, revolutionary action should be based on things as they are, not as we prefer them to be. If we only focus on what we like or what we want to see, we won’t build a social force capable of producing and defending a rupture with the system. To do this, we need a strategic line out of this antagonistic scenario and toward something more ideal. This requires us to take into account many different perspectives and unify them around a sustainable path forward.

On the social level, plurality is necessary and desirable, but on the political level, a shared strategic path forward won’t be produced by just amassing the magic number of individuals. A political organization is defined by its ability to analyze and strategize out of a conjuncture. So, the starting point for a political organization is the initial conjuncture, but as the process continues, other historical conjunctures will also have to be dealt with and overcome.

As we’ve said before, a revolutionary process is political, not personal. So, it shouldn’t be centered around some leader or group that claims to have perfectly mapped out the situation or to be the only one to see the correct path forward. The strategic line of a political organization isn’t produced by the “independent mental processes” of an enlightened individual because it’s not a “hot take” from the internet. Those kinds of personally conceived paths forward are less complex and dynamic than political strategy because they arrive at conclusions from an individual perspective rather than an organizational perspective.