This is a translation 벗에게: 최소 저항선을 찾지 않는 것, 그것이 우리의 첫 번째 강령입니다. Aug 10, 2013

Dear Friend: "Refusing the search for the line of least resistance, That is the first program of ours"

 

Dear Friend

When capitalism emerged 200~300 years ago, challenging feudalism as the dominant system, it was fresh and progressive―not just in practice, but intellectually revolutionary, elaborate, and attractive. As it swept away the tattered remnants of feudalism across the globe, capitalism expanded its power, and even then, it was still progressive in its own way.

But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the completion of the monopoly of finance capital, that is imperialism, progressiveness and revolutionary perspective of capitalism had run out of steam. It was rapidly becoming obsolete and showing itself to be a source of war, hunger, inequality, environmental, genocide and other evils. World War I was the event that underscored the fact that capitalism should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

But for the next hundred years or so, capitalism managed to survive, and in those years, when what was supposed to die didn't, it began to decay; its wounds never healed, but became infected, oozing blood and stinking out of every orifice; with that body, it climbs up and sits on humanity, pressing down on our breathing and tormenting us.

So capitalism, in the eyes of anyone with a modicum of intellectual discernment, now has a hard time hiding its rotten appearance. Similarly, the logic that defends capitalism has long since lost its appeal. Anyone with a modicum of intellectual discernment can see through the propaganda defending capitalism without difficulty and recognize its stale, illogical, disgustingly ignorant, and clueless face.

Bush and Obama have no differences, so do the Saenuri Party and the Democratic Party, and Ilbe Insects are the extreme form of there disgusting and filthy nature.

For this reason, young intellectuals are not easily swayed by the logic that defends capitalism. In nine cases out of ten, they are attracted to the logic that criticizes capitalism. This is because the logic that defends capitalism is antique and rotten, while the logic that criticizes it is refined, logical, and attractive at first glance.

But just because the logic in favor of capitalism has become outdated doesn’t mean it’s a mere hallucination. Capitalism is still the dominant system, and it’s still very much alive and well. It uses the logic of money makes people kowtow for a living along with wielding violence.

For this very reason, it is also rare for intellectuals to push that so-called “progressive idea” to its ultimate conclusion. At first, disgusted by the ugliness of capitalism, they step back and distance themselves from capitalism, and approach to revolutionary Marxism. That is because it looks sophisticated and attractive, and it is. But, as they experience the brute force of capitalism in the various relationships of real life, they begin to shrink and gradually withdraw. They realize the fear of livlihood, poverty, severed relationships, social isolation, lagging behind, or, more directly, the imprisonment and physical distress, then in reverse, begin to distance themselves from Marxism. They compromise one centimeter at a time with capitalism, transforming, sometimes step by step and sometimes rapidly, into the snob.

For this reason, most of them never push the revolutionary ideas to their ultimate conclusion. They can’t. They just pick it up as a cover to indicate that they have never “fully” approved of capitalism. Revolutionary ideas become decoration and fashion. Revolutionary ideas become an alibi for snobs to claim that they are not “fully” snobbish. It gets humiliated.

This is why revolutionary ideas are not something you can carry around just because you have an intellectual brilliance, but rather because you have the willpower and bravery to defend them to the end. Once you bear them, you must have the courage and stamina to face the pressures that inevitably ensue, so that you can become one with the revolutionary ideas, inspire people with it, and inflict a decisive blow to the monster called capitalism.

That’s the reason why Lenin is Lenin.

That’s the reason why Trotsky is Trotsky.

That’s the reason why so many revolutionaries were able to live as respectable revolutionaries till the end.

On top of intellectual brilliance, they had strong will and spirit.

They stood up to the pressures that were put upon them, shook off their fears, protected and sharpened their ideas.

They never humiliated revolutionary ideas by using them as an decoration to make themselves look noble; they dedicated themselves to the cause of revolutionary ideas.

 

Refusing the search for the line of least resistance, That is the first program of ours.

벗에게: 최소 저항선을 찾지 않는 것, 그것이 우리의 첫 번째 강령입니다 2013년 8월 10일