Socialist Revolution Stratigy

Author: Ziheng MoIntroduction: The Revolutionary Science of the New EraIn our previous theoretical articles, we have systematically demonstrated the historical inevitability of the “second socialist revolution.” We have made clear that in countries exemplified by Vietnam—where capitalism has been fully restored—the social nature has already degenerated into a peculiar form of capitalism characterized by the dictatorship of a bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie, possessing fascist traits and comprador-dependent characteristics.Its reactionary rule is maintained by hanging the hypocritical banners of “Communist Party” and “socialism,” supplemented by the most tight-knit and technologically sophisticated stability-maintenance violent apparatus in human history.The task of theory is not only to “interpret the world” but, more importantly, to “change the world.” Once we have established the nature, target, and motive forces of the “second socialist revolution,” the most urgent and central practical question confronts all genuine revolutionaries: “What is to be done?”What is the concrete form through which the revolutionary road—overthrowing this “red-skinned” bourgeois regime and rebuilding the dictatorship of the proletariat—can be realized?Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the science of action. It opposes all dogmatism divorced from reality and all revisionism that abandons principles.Lenin profoundly taught us: “The basic principle of Marxism on questions of revolutionary tactics is that revolutionary tactics must be based on concrete conditions and change with changes in those conditions…”Comrade Mao Zedong, through the practice of struggle, developed this idea to its highest level: “concrete analysis of concrete conditions” is the living soul of Marxism.Therefore, we must never mechanically copy any ready-made model of past revolutions. Whether it is the “October Road” of Petrograd in 1917 or the Chinese experience of “encircling the cities from the countryside” in 1949, both represent the great application of revolutionary science under specific historical conditions—but they are not formulas that can be arbitrarily replicated.Facing the entirely new historical task of the “second socialist revolution,” the enemy we confront is an unprecedentedly special enemy. It is a “master synthesizer” that has absorbed the ruling techniques of every ruling class in history (feudal emperors, the Western bourgeoisie, and even the bureaucratic group of the first socialist state). It possesses both the West’s information-technology surveillance and the East’s despotic personal control; it has both the fascist violence machine and the entire discursive system stolen from communism.Therefore, the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat must also be a great, creative synthesis and transcendence guided by the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.The task of this article is, based on a profound dissection of the enemy’s special characteristics, to conceive the possible (and inevitable) form of realization of the “second socialist revolution.”Chapter 1: The Fundamental Principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on the Form of RevolutionBefore discussing concrete forms, we must reaffirm several unshakable cornerstones of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on this question. Any conception that departs from these basic principles will inevitably slide into the quagmire of revisionism.

1. Violent revolution is the universal law
   The entire theory of Marxism-Leninism is built on this fact. The state machine is essentially an instrument of violence by which one class oppresses another. The bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie will never “peacefully” step down from the stage of history—they control vast armies, police (Công an), and secret services. For the proletariat to seize power, “the only means is violent revolution.” To abandon violent revolution is to abandon all revolution.

2. The old state machine must be thoroughly smashed
   Summarizing the experience of the Paris Commune, Marx pointed out that the working class cannot simply take over the ready-made state machine and use it for its own purposes—it must be smashed completely. This point is especially important in a “red-skinned” fascist country like Vietnam. Its entire bureaucratic system, police apparatus, and official “trade unions” all serve bourgeois rule and must be utterly destroyed. There can be no illusion of “peaceful evolution” or “internal reform.”

3. The absolute leadership of the proletarian vanguard party
   This is the core of Leninism—the party question. Under conditions where the enemy possesses such a powerful dictatorship machine, any spontaneous, scattered struggle by the proletariat—no matter how heroic—will ultimately be crushed one by one. Only through a proletarian vanguard party composed of the most advanced, conscious, and disciplined elements, organized according to democratic centralism, can millions of masses be united into an invincible material force.

4. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”
   This famous thesis of Comrade Mao Zedong is the highest generalization and great development of the Marxist-Leninist theory of violent revolution. The proletariat must not only achieve political and organizational independence; when conditions are ripe, it must also establish its own armed forces. Without a people’s army, the people have nothing.

Guided by the above principles, we now analyze and critically inherit the classical models in history.Chapter 2: Strategic Conception (I) — Dialectical Sublation of the “Urban Armed Uprising” Model (October Road)The “October Road” takes armed uprisings in the central cities (capital, industrial centers) as the breakthrough point to rapidly seize nationwide power. Its classic features are: long-term preparation of struggle + sudden revolutionary outbreak.Applicability in the “second revolution” (“what to retain”):

• Class basis alignment
  Today’s Vietnamese social structure offers even more “classic” conditions for proletarian revolution than Russia in 1917. Through “Doi Moi” (renovation/opening), the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie has created tens of millions of highly concentrated, propertyless modern industrial workers in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Haiphong, Binh Duong, etc. This is the most thoroughgoing and revolutionary class—the absolute main force of the “second revolution.” The explosive point of revolution must inevitably occur in these heartland zones of the most concentrated working class.

• Centrality of the enemy
  The rule of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie is a highly centralized pyramid system. Its political, economic, military, and cultural resources are heavily concentrated in a few major cities. Once these central hubs are paralyzed and occupied by the proletariat, its rule over the vast regions will rapidly disintegrate.

Limitations in the “second revolution” (“what to discard”):

• Extreme surveillance and repression
  We are not facing the Tsar’s “Okhrana.” The bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie possesses an “all-encompassing net” based on artificial intelligence, big data, facial recognition, and nationwide grid management. The difficulty for a highly centralized underground Bolshevik-style Central Committee to survive and coordinate before launching the general offensive is unprecedented in history.

• No “legal” space for struggle
  In 1917 Russia there existed the Duma, Soviets (after February), and “legal” space for various political factions where the Bolsheviks could conduct open propaganda and agitation. In a fascist dictatorship like Vietnam, no such “legal” opposition space exists. The official “General Confederation of Labor” is a yellow union that represses workers. Any attempt to replicate the model of “peaceful development into armed uprising” is naive fantasy about the nature of the enemy.

Chapter summary: The final decisive battle of the “second revolution” will inevitably take the form of urban armed uprising, but this absolutely cannot be the starting point of the revolution. The simplistic idea of “the moment arrives → raise the call → seize the Winter Palace” is “Left” adventurism—a replica of Blanquism. Before the decisive battle arrives, there must be a long preparatory phase that creates the conditions for that battle.Chapter 3: Strategic Conception (II) — Creative Transformation of the “Encircling the Cities from the Countryside” Model (Protracted People’s War)“Protracted People’s War” is the great revolutionary road pioneered by Comrade Mao Zedong in semi-colonial, semi-feudal China. Its core: the Party establishes base areas in the vast countryside where enemy forces are weak, mobilizes peasants, carries out agrarian revolution, builds people’s armed forces, gradually exhausts the enemy through protracted guerrilla and mobile warfare, and finally encircles and seizes the cities.Inapplicability in the “second revolution” (mechanical dogmatism):

• Fundamental difference in social nature
  Contemporary Vietnam is not a “semi-feudal” country. Through its modernized state machine, the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie has achieved absolute, grid-style control over the entire country (including the most remote rural areas). There are no traditional “weak links of rule.”

• Lack of geographical space for base areas
  Modern reconnaissance technology (satellites, drones) and rapid-reaction forces make long-term existence of traditional “Jinggangshan-style” base areas almost impossible.

• Change in the main class forces
  The principal contradiction in Vietnamese society today is no longer between peasants and landlords, but between the proletariat and the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie. The main revolutionary force lies in the urban factories, not the rural fields.

Core spirit to be creatively transformed (“what to retain”):Dogmatists see only “countryside” and “encirclement,” while Marxist-Leninist-Maoists see the immortal revolutionary essence behind this strategy—which we must creatively transform:

• The thought of protracted war
  The enemy is strong; we are weak. Revolution cannot succeed at one stroke. We must prepare for a long, tortuous, zigzag struggle of strategic defense → strategic stalemate → strategic counteroffensive. The “second revolution” will be a protracted war in the cities.

• The thought of base areas
  What were Mao’s base areas? They were embryonic new “red political power” under Party leadership, armed worker-peasant division of territory. In the cities, our “base areas” are not geographical—they are class-based! Our “base areas” are precisely the enormous export processing zones and industrial parks where Vietnam’s tens of millions of industrial workers are located—places the fascist regime cannot simply shut down.

• The thought of people’s war
  “The soldiers and the people are the foundation of victory.” We must mobilize the broadest masses, plunging the enemy into the “vast ocean of people’s war.” In the cities, this means perfectly combining the secret work of the vanguard party with the daily economic struggles (strikes, slowdowns) and political struggles (for the right to organize, against bureaucrats) of the working class.

Chapter 4: Strategic Conception (III) — The Only Feasible Path for the “Second Revolution”: “Urban Protracted War” with Factories as Fortresses, Strikes as Rehearsals, and Disintegration of the Army as the PivotSynthesizing the above analysis, we propose the only feasible path for the “second socialist revolution.” It is not a simple copy of “October” or “Yan’an,” but a new development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the era of 21st-century capitalist restoration. We call it “Urban Protracted War.”This strategic conception is roughly divided into three closely linked stages:Stage 1: Strategic Defense — “Take Root in Factories, Secretly Build the Party”This is the most difficult, longest, yet most crucial “foundation-laying” stage.Core task: Establish an absolutely underground, cellularized, combat-oriented proletarian vanguard party.Mode of work: The advanced elements of the Party must scatter like seeds into the massive factories of Vietnam’s major industrial zones (Binh Duong, Bac Ninh, Thai Nguyen)—Samsung, Nike, Foxconn contract factories, etc. They live, eat, work, and struggle together with the workers as ordinary workers.Establishing the “urban base areas”: Our “base areas” are the factory work teams and production groups. Party work does not consist of empty talk in society at large, but secretly organizing the most resolute struggles around the workers’ most immediate sufferings (low wages, long hours, no social insurance, managerial abuse).Embryonic “red unions”: Outside the fascist regime’s tightly controlled “yellow unions,” we must secretly build small, absolutely loyal-to-the-working-class underground “red union groups” (or “worker core groups”). These groups are the embryos of the future “Soviets” (workers’ and soldiers’ councils).Slogans of this stage: economic but pointing toward the political—e.g., “Fight for the 8-hour workday!” “Oppose arbitrary firings!” “We demand the right to elect our own union representatives!”Stage 2: Strategic Stalemate — “Rehearsal of Political General Strikes”When Party organizations have deeply taken root among the workers, and when the comprador economy of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie encounters its inherent periodic crises (e.g., global order declines, mass layoffs), revolutionary timing begins to ripen.Core task: Transform scattered, economic factory strikes into regional, sectoral, and eventually nationwide political general strikes.Evolution of struggle forms: Strikes are the greatest school of the proletariat—the “1905” of the “second revolution.” Every strike is a direct blow against the dictatorship of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie; every act of repression is the best exposure of the fascist regime’s lie that it “serves the people.”Germination of “dual power”: At the high tide of strikes, the Party-led “red union groups” must step forward, openly transforming into “strike committees” that take full control of production (re-orienting it to produce only for the workers themselves), defense (organizing workers’ picket teams), and daily life. This is the public appearance of “Soviets,” the beginning of “urban division of territory,” and the reality of “dual power.”Key to this stage: In the strike wave, the Party must rapidly put forward the political general slogans—“Overthrow the rule of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie!” “All power to the workers’ representative councils!”—shifting the struggle from the economic field to the seizure of power.Stage 3: Strategic Counteroffensive — “Disintegrate the Army, Armed Decisive Battle”This is the final stage of revolution—the reappearance of the “October Road” and the culminating act of “Urban Protracted War.”Outbreak of revolutionary crisis: A nationwide political general strike inevitably plunges the rule of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie into total paralysis. At this point, it has only one last resort: mobilize the army for bloody suppression.The pivot of revolution: Disintegration of the army—a classic task of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.Vietnam’s army (VPA) carries an anti-imperialist revolutionary tradition (Dien Bien Phu, resistance against America). Its soldiers are all sons and daughters of workers and peasants. Its middle- and lower-level officers are already filled with resentment toward the corruption of the upper bureaucratic group (military business during “Doi Moi”).From the very first stage, the Party must simultaneously dispatch comrades into the army to carry out secret political work. At the decisive moment, the Party’s slogans must be: “Guns must not be turned on our class brothers!” “The people’s army must never suppress the people!” “Down with the corrupt clique—rebuild the army of Chairman Ho Chi Minh!”Form of the decisive battle: When the army wavers, splits, or even mutinies on the front lines (strike factories, squares), that is the signal for the general uprising. The Party should immediately lead the already-armed “workers’ picket teams” (formed during strikes and armed through various channels, including weapons from mutinous soldiers), join with rebellious army units, and rapidly seize television stations, radio stations, government buildings, transportation hubs, and police headquarters.Smash and rebuild: At the moment power is seized, immediately announce the dissolution of the old police (Công an) and bureaucratic system, with the “workers’ representative councils” (Soviets) serving as the new state machine of the proletarian dictatorship.Conclusion: A Creative Blueprint of Marxism-Leninism-MaoismIn summary, the “second socialist revolution” is neither an unattainable fantasy nor a mechanical replay of old scripts. It is a living science that demands the greatest theoretical courage and the most tenacious practical spirit to explore.The “Urban Protracted War” we envision is precisely the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the entirely new historical conditions of the era of capitalist restoration:

• It absorbs the Leninist essence of the “vanguard party,” “urban center,” and “armed uprising.”

• It absorbs the Maoist soul of “protracted war,” “base areas” (creatively transformed into factory base areas), “people’s war,” and “disintegration of enemy troops.”

This road is the only viable path and the inevitable path for the “second revolution.” It rejects both “Left” adventurism (blind uprisings) and rightist capitulationism (parliamentary road, peaceful reform).It demands that revolutionaries display the fearless spirit of sacrifice once shown by the Bolsheviks and the Chinese Communists—go deep among the tens of millions of the most oppressed “world factory” slaves at the very bottom in Vietnam. Go there to take root, build the Party, organize, strike, and fight—until the final decisive battle arrives.