Pride, Class Struggle and the National Democratic Revolution

 

To every queer worker.

 

To every queer peasant.

 

To every unemployed youth.

 

To every student.

 

To every revolutionary woman.

 

To every oppressed and exploited Kenyan.

 

We extend the hand of revolutionary solidarity.

 

Every year during the month of June, the representatives of monopoly capital, imperialist governments, multinational corporations and the liberal establishment drape themselves in the colours of Pride. They speak endlessly of diversity, tolerance and inclusion. Banks change their logos. Foreign embassies decorate their compounds. Multinational corporations issue carefully crafted statements celebrating equality. International NGOs organise conferences, workshops and media campaigns in the name of human rights.

 

For one month they proclaim their affection for the oppressed. During the remaining eleven months they finance wars, enforce debt, privatise public services, destroy trade unions, dispossess peasants of their land and strengthen the very state machinery that brutalises workers, women, youth and oppressed gender and sexual minorities throughout the world.

 

This contradiction is not accidental.

 

It is the political expression of imperialism in its highest stage.

 

Imperialism has perfected the art of appropriating the language of liberation while preserving the structures of exploitation. It seeks to empty every revolutionary tradition of its class content, transforming struggles born in resistance into commodities that can be bought, sold and marketed. Every genuine movement of the oppressed is presented back to the people stripped of its revolutionary essence and repackaged as a consumer lifestyle compatible with capitalist accumulation.

 

Pride has not escaped this process.

 

What began as an act of collective resistance against police repression has, in many parts of the capitalist world, been transformed into an annual festival sponsored by the very institutions responsible for exploitation, militarism and colonial domination. Corporate executives march beside politicians whose governments finance occupations and wars. Weapons manufacturers celebrate diversity while producing the instruments that devastate entire nations. Financial institutions proclaim inclusion while foreclosing homes, enforcing austerity and indebting millions of working people across the Global South.

 

The bourgeoisie has attempted to convert rebellion into branding.

 

The revolutionary significance of Pride has been systematically diluted through commercialisation, liberal individualism and imperialist appropriation. The struggle against oppression has been separated from the struggle against exploitation. Structural transformation has been replaced by symbolic representation. Collective emancipation has been reduced to personal visibility.

 

This represents not liberation but ideological disarmament.

 

The Revolutionary Youth League and the Revolutionary Women League of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya reject this distortion.

 

We affirm that the struggle against discrimination based on sexuality or gender cannot be separated from the struggle against imperialism, comprador capitalism, landlordism and every form of exploitation imposed upon the Kenyan people.

 

Our point of departure is historical materialism.

 

Human beings do not live outside history. Neither sexuality, gender relations nor social identities exist independently of the material organisation of society. Every social relation develops within definite economic conditions. Every legal system, religious doctrine, cultural norm and moral code bears the imprint of the dominant mode of production and the class interests it serves.

 

Marxism therefore does not approach the oppression of queer people as an isolated moral question. It examines it as part of the broader system through which ruling classes organise labour, discipline populations, regulate the family, reproduce property relations and maintain political domination.

 

Oppressed gender and sexual minorities do not constitute a separate social class.

 

They are workers employed in factories, plantations, mines and offices.

 

They are unemployed youth surviving in informal settlements.

 

They are peasants cultivating increasingly fragmented plots of land.

 

They are students burdened by debt and uncertain futures.

 

They are artists, teachers, healthcare workers and street vendors.

 

Like every other section of society, they occupy different positions within the class structure. Their material interests are determined not simply by identity but by their relationship to the means of production and by the broader conditions of class society.

 

For this reason, the liberation of queer people cannot be realised through symbolic recognition alone. Genuine emancipation requires the revolutionary transformation of the social relations that produce exploitation, inequality and oppression.

 

In Kenya this task assumes a specific historical character.

 

Kenya remains a neo colonial and semi feudal society dominated by imperialist finance capital acting through a comprador bourgeoisie whose political power rests upon foreign monopoly capital, landlordism, state repression and ethnic division. The wealth created by workers and peasants is appropriated by multinational corporations and their local collaborators while millions remain without secure employment, adequate housing, healthcare, education or land.

 

Under these conditions every oppressed section of society experiences exploitation through the same state apparatus that protects imperialist interests.

 

The queer worker confronting discrimination in the workplace encounters the same employers who suppress trade unions and casualise labour.

 

The queer peasant dispossessed of land confronts the same landlord class protected by foreign capital.

 

The unemployed queer youth faces the same state that criminalises poverty, militarises public space and responds to popular protest with police violence.

 

These struggles share a common enemy.

 

The liberation of one section of the oppressed cannot be secured while the entire system of exploitation remains intact.

 

This understanding distinguishes revolutionary politics from liberal politics.

 

Liberalism seeks accommodation within existing structures.

 

Marxism seeks their transformation.

 

Liberalism demands inclusion within capitalism.

 

Marxism demands the abolition of exploitation itself.

 

Liberalism celebrates representation among the ruling classes.

 

Marxism organises the working class to abolish class rule.

 

For this reason, we commemorate Pride not as a corporate celebration nor as a symbolic gesture, but as an opportunity to strengthen revolutionary organisation among workers, peasants, women, students and youth. Pride must become a moment of political education, class organisation and militant solidarity. It must contribute to the broader struggle for national liberation, people’s democracy and socialism.

 

The task before us is therefore not merely to defend oppressed communities against reactionary attacks. It is to unite every exploited and oppressed section of the Kenyan people into a revolutionary movement capable of defeating imperialism, dismantling the neo colonial state and constructing a socialist society founded upon collective ownership, equality, human dignity and the full development of every individual.

 

This is the historical responsibility of our generation.

 

This is the revolutionary meaning of Pride.

 

This is the road towards genuine human liberation.

 

 

The Historical Origins of Pride: From Stonewall to the Struggle Against Capitalism

 

The revolutionary significance of Pride cannot be understood without understanding its history.

 

The ruling classes have laboured tirelessly to erase this history because it exposes a truth they fear above all else. Every meaningful advance won by the oppressed has emerged not from the generosity of governments, corporations or courts, but through organised resistance from below.

 

The history of Pride begins not in the boardrooms of multinational corporations, nor in the conference halls of international NGOs, nor in the carefully managed public relations campaigns of liberal politicians. It begins in struggle. It begins in defiance. It begins when the oppressed refuse to submit any longer.

 

In the early hours of 28 June 1969, patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, resisted yet another routine police raid. Police harassment of queer people was neither exceptional nor accidental. It formed part of a broader system through which the capitalist state criminalised those considered socially undesirable while policing urban working class communities.

 

Among those who resisted were poor workers, homeless youth, drag performers, transgender people, lesbians, gay men and other marginalised people who had endured years of humiliation, arbitrary arrests and police violence.

 

When the police attempted once again to enforce this order, the people fought back.

 

What followed was not a carefully planned political campaign but a spontaneous urban rebellion. Crowds confronted the police, erected barricades, resisted arrest and transformed years of accumulated anger into open resistance. Demonstrations continued for several days, inspiring new forms of political organisation throughout the United States and eventually across much of the world.

 

The Stonewall uprising did not create queer resistance. Long before Stonewall there had been countless acts of courage by individuals and organisations resisting criminalisation, discrimination and persecution. Nevertheless, Stonewall became a historical turning point because it transformed isolated grievances into a visible mass confrontation with the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state.

 

This historical lesson remains profoundly relevant today.

 

Stonewall was not a request for inclusion within an unjust order.

 

It was a rejection of oppression itself.

 

It was not an appeal for better corporate policies.

 

It was resistance against state violence.

 

It was not organised by multinational corporations seeking new consumer markets.

 

It was organised by oppressed people defending their dignity against repression.

 

It did not emerge from the generosity of liberal institutions.

 

It emerged because ordinary people refused to retreat.

 

Like many popular uprisings throughout history, Stonewall demonstrated a fundamental truth recognised by revolutionary movements across the world. When the oppressed begin to act collectively, they discover strengths that had previously remained hidden beneath the weight of fear and isolation.

 

This lesson extends far beyond the specific conditions of New York in 1969.

 

Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, every anti colonial struggle was born through similar acts of collective courage. Workers defied employers. Peasants seized land. Students confronted dictatorship. Women challenged patriarchal domination. Colonised peoples rose against imperial conquest.

 

The particular forms differed.

 

The underlying principle remained constant.

 

History advances because the oppressed struggle.

 

The revolutionary tradition represented by Stonewall therefore belongs not only to one community or one country. It forms part of the broader international history of resistance against exploitation and oppression.

 

Yet capitalism possesses an extraordinary capacity to absorb the symbols of resistance while emptying them of their revolutionary content.

 

Just as revolutionary leaders are transformed into harmless cultural icons, revolutionary slogans converted into advertising campaigns and workers’ holidays commercialised for profit, Pride has increasingly been subjected to the same process of ideological capture.

 

Corporations that dismiss workers for organising trade unions now sponsor Pride parades.

 

Banks that finance environmental destruction and speculative capital now market themselves as champions of equality.

 

Governments that participate in military interventions abroad now invoke queer rights to portray themselves as defenders of civilisation.

 

This transformation illustrates one of the defining characteristics of monopoly capitalism.

 

Capital does not merely exploit labour.

 

It also commodifies culture.

 

Every symbol capable of generating profit is appropriated. Every expression of resistance that cannot be destroyed is repackaged as a marketable commodity. Rebellion becomes fashion. History becomes branding. Liberation becomes advertising.

 

The result is a profound historical amnesia.

 

Millions are encouraged to celebrate Pride without understanding why Pride exists.

 

They are invited to participate in colourful festivals while forgetting the police batons, prison cells, discrimination, unemployment and violence that gave birth to the movement.

 

The memory of collective resistance is replaced by the mythology of corporate benevolence.

 

Revolutionary politics rejects this falsification of history.

 

To honour Stonewall is not merely to commemorate an event.

 

It is to recover its political essence.

 

Stonewall reminds us that oppressed people possess the capacity to resist even the most entrenched systems of domination.

 

It reminds us that the state is not a neutral institution standing above society but an instrument that, under capitalism, protects the interests of the ruling classes.

 

It reminds us that legal reforms, while important in improving immediate conditions, have historically followed sustained mass struggle rather than preceding it.

 

Above all, Stonewall reminds us that liberation cannot be bestowed from above.

 

It must be won through organised struggle.

 

For revolutionaries in Kenya, this historical lesson acquires particular significance.

 

Our task is not to imitate the experiences of other countries mechanically. Marxism rejects the transplantation of political models from one society to another without concrete analysis. Every revolutionary movement must arise from the specific material conditions of its own people.

 

Kenya possesses its own history of anti-colonial resistance, workers’ organisation, peasant uprisings and revolutionary sacrifice.

 

The legacy of the Land and Freedom Army, militant trade unionism, student struggles, women’s resistance and the continuing struggles of workers and peasants provides the foundation upon which our revolutionary movement must build.

 

The significance of Stonewall therefore lies not in copying its specific forms of struggle but in embracing its spirit of organised resistance against oppression.

 

Its lesson is universal.

 

The oppressed need not remain passive.

 

They can organise.

 

They can resist.

 

They can transform history.

 

This understanding forms the starting point for a revolutionary analysis of the queer question in Kenya and throughout the neo colonial world.

 

Marxism, Historical Materialism and the Queer Question

 

The oppression of gender and sexual minorities cannot be understood through sentiment, moral outrage or abstract appeals to human nature. Marxism approaches every social phenomenon through the method of historical materialism. It asks a fundamental question. Under what material conditions did a particular social relation emerge, and whose class interests does it serve?

 

This method distinguishes scientific socialism from both reactionary conservatism and liberal idealism.

 

Reactionary ideology insists that existing social relations are eternal, ordained by religion, nature or tradition. Liberal ideology accepts many of the same social relations but seeks to soften their harshest consequences through legal reform and individual rights. Marxism rejects both positions. It demonstrates that every social institution has a history, and because it has a history, it can be transformed.

 

Human society has not always been organised in the same manner. The family, property relations, the state and prevailing moral codes have changed as the productive forces and relations of production have developed. No ruling class has ever presented its own social arrangements as temporary. Every exploiting class has proclaimed its system to be natural, permanent and inevitable. Yet history has repeatedly swept those systems aside.

 

The oppression of women, the regulation of sexuality and the policing of gender expression must therefore be analysed within this broader historical development.

 

As Friedrich Engels demonstrated in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, the modern patriarchal family did not emerge independently of economic development. It became closely linked to the rise of private property, inheritance and class society. The family assumed an important role in reproducing labour power, transmitting property and maintaining social order. Under successive class societies, institutions of religion, law and education reinforced these relations and presented them as eternal truths.

 

This does not mean that every society has regulated gender and sexuality in identical ways.

 

On the contrary, historical and anthropological research demonstrates enormous diversity across civilisations. Different societies have recognised different family structures, different gender roles and different social expectations. Colonialism itself violently disrupted many indigenous social systems throughout Africa, imposing legal codes and moral doctrines that reflected the interests of European ruling classes rather than African historical development.

 

The criminalisation of same sex relations in many African countries is itself deeply entangled with this colonial legacy. Laws inherited from British colonial administration continue to shape legal systems long after the colonial flag was lowered. These laws were not introduced to defend African culture. They were introduced as instruments of colonial governance, reflecting Victorian moral codes and the political needs of empire.

 

Yet Marxists also reject the illusion that simply repealing colonial laws would abolish oppression.

 

Legal reform alone cannot dismantle the economic foundations of class domination.

 

Capitalism possesses a remarkable ability to accommodate formal equality while preserving material inequality.

 

Workers may become formally equal before the law while remaining exploited in the workplace.

 

Women may gain political rights while continuing to perform unpaid domestic labour under conditions of economic dependence.

 

Oppressed gender and sexual minorities may receive legal recognition while remaining unemployed, homeless, landless or subjected to police violence.

 

This contradiction illustrates the limits of bourgeois democracy.

 

Under capitalism, equality before the law coexists with profound inequality in economic life.

 

The owner of a multinational corporation and the casual labourer stand formally equal before the courts while confronting entirely different material realities.

 

The wealthy landlord and the landless peasant possess the same legal personality while one commands wealth accumulated through generations of exploitation and the other struggles merely to survive.

 

Formal equality cannot compensate for structural exploitation.

 

The same principle applies to queer liberation.

 

Representation within ruling institutions does not abolish exploitation.

 

The appointment of queer executives to multinational corporations does not transform the conditions of workers employed by those corporations.

 

The election of queer politicians committed to neoliberal economic policies does not liberate unemployed youth or dispossessed peasants.

 

The visibility of affluent professionals cannot substitute for the emancipation of the masses.

 

Marxism therefore rejects both reductionism and fragmentation.

 

It rejects the reductionism that dismisses every form of oppression except economic exploitation.

 

It also rejects the fragmentation that separates every oppression into isolated struggles detached from the totality of capitalist society.

 

Historical materialism teaches that exploitation and oppression reinforce one another.

 

Capitalism profits from divisions within the working class.

 

Imperialism strengthens its rule by encouraging religious sectarianism, ethnic chauvinism, patriarchy, misogyny and every ideology capable of preventing the exploited from recognising their common interests.

 

Whenever workers are encouraged to fear one another rather than their exploiters, the ruling classes consolidate their power.

 

Whenever peasants are divided against one another through manufactured prejudice, imperialism breathes more easily.

 

Whenever unemployed youth are persuaded that another oppressed group constitutes their principal enemy, monopoly capital celebrates another victory.

 

For this reason, communists oppose every ideology that fragments the unity of the working class.

 

Our objective is neither to erase differences among the oppressed nor to elevate one contradiction above all others in abstraction from concrete conditions.

 

Our objective is to unite all those exploited by imperialism, landlordism and comprador capitalism into a revolutionary force capable of transforming society.

 

Within Kenya’s National Democratic Revolution, this task assumes particular urgency.

 

The principal contradiction remains that between imperialism and the broad masses of the Kenyan people. Imperialism exercises domination through the comprador bourgeoisie, the remnants of semi feudal relations and the coercive apparatus of the neo colonial state.

 

Every democratic struggle must therefore strengthen the capacity of the masses to confront this principal enemy.

 

The struggle against discrimination directed towards queer people forms part of this democratic struggle.

 

So too does the struggle against patriarchy.

 

So too does the struggle against ethnic chauvinism.

 

So too does the struggle against youth unemployment, landlessness, police brutality and imperialist domination.

 

These struggles do not compete with one another.

 

They converge within the broader movement for national liberation and socialist transformation.

 

This understanding distinguishes proletarian internationalism from bourgeois identity politics.

 

Identity politics often begins and ends with recognition.

 

Marxism begins with recognition but advances towards organisation.

 

It advances towards class unity.

 

It advances towards revolutionary transformation.

 

It advances towards socialism.

 

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya therefore approaches the queer question neither through moral panic nor liberal accommodation.

 

We approach it through scientific socialism.

 

We reject persecution.

 

We reject discrimination.

 

We reject every attempt by the ruling classes to use prejudice as a weapon for dividing the exploited.

 

At the same time, we reject every attempt by imperialism to appropriate the legitimate aspirations of oppressed people as instruments for extending neo colonial domination.

 

Our task is neither to defend the old order nor to seek a more inclusive capitalism.

 

Our task is to abolish the social order that continually reproduces exploitation, oppression and human alienation.

 

Only through the revolutionary transformation of society can every human being develop freely, participate equally in social production and enjoy genuine dignity beyond the narrow limits imposed by class society.

 

The liberation of queer workers is inseparable from the liberation of the working class.

 

The liberation of women is inseparable from the liberation of the peasantry.

 

The liberation of youth is inseparable from the liberation of the nation.

 

The liberation of humanity is inseparable from the victory of socialism.

 

The Queer Question in Kenya’s Neo Colonial and Semi Feudal Social Formation

 

Marxism teaches that no social question can be understood in abstraction from the concrete conditions in which it develops. The queer question in Kenya cannot simply be imported from Europe or North America, nor can it be reduced to debates manufactured by social media, foreign foundations or liberal advocacy organisations. It must be analysed within the historical development of Kenyan society itself.

 

Kenya remains a neo colonial and semi feudal social formation.

 

Political independence transferred the symbols of statehood but did not transfer economic power to the Kenyan people. Imperialism retained control over finance, technology, international trade, strategic industries and significant sectors of agricultural production. Foreign monopoly capital continues to dominate the commanding heights of the economy through multinational corporations, international financial institutions and unequal trade relations. Their local agents, the comprador bourgeoisie, administer this system on behalf of imperialist interests while enriching themselves through corruption, speculation and the exploitation of labour.

 

The neo colonial state exists primarily to defend this economic order.

 

Its police protect private property before they protect human life.

 

Its courts safeguard commercial contracts before they safeguard social justice.

 

Its taxation system burdens workers and peasants while granting enormous concessions to foreign investors.

 

Its development policies displace communities in the name of investment while millions remain unemployed, underemployed or trapped within precarious informal labour.

 

These realities shape the lives of every oppressed person in Kenya, including queer people.

 

The queer worker employed in an Export Processing Zone confronts the same long hours, unsafe working conditions and anti union repression experienced by fellow workers. Their sexuality does not exempt them from exploitation. On the contrary, discrimination may intensify their vulnerability by making it more difficult to secure employment, organise collectively or challenge abusive employers.

 

The queer peasant faces the same crisis of landlessness that confronts millions of rural families whose labour enriches landlords, agribusiness corporations and financial institutions. Without land, credit, irrigation, markets or secure livelihoods, formal recognition alone offers little protection against hunger and poverty.

 

The queer student graduates into an economy incapable of providing dignified employment. Degrees accumulate while jobs disappear. Young people are instructed to become entrepreneurs in an economy monopolised by large capital, speculative finance and foreign corporations.

 

The queer resident of an informal settlement confronts soaring rents, inadequate sanitation, insecure housing and routine police harassment alongside neighbours whose experiences of exploitation arise from the same political economy.

 

These are not separate struggles.

 

They emerge from the same social order.

 

The ruling classes nevertheless possess a profound interest in preventing the oppressed from recognising this common foundation.

 

Whenever economic crisis deepens, the comprador political elite seeks new methods of diversion.

 

When unemployment rises, they blame immigrants.

 

When food prices increase, they manufacture ethnic hostility.

 

When corruption becomes impossible to conceal, they invoke moral panic.

 

When workers begin organising against exploitation, they search for cultural controversies capable of diverting public attention away from questions of land, wages, debt and imperialist domination.

 

This strategy has accompanied class rule throughout history.

 

The ruling classes encourage sections of the oppressed to direct their anger horizontally rather than upwards.

 

Instead of confronting the corporations privatising public wealth, people are encouraged to fear vulnerable minorities.

 

Instead of questioning the concentration of land ownership, they are urged to police private lives.

 

Instead of organising against austerity imposed by international finance, they are invited to wage endless cultural battles that leave the structures of exploitation untouched.

 

Reactionary politics therefore serves an identifiable class function.

 

It fragments the unity of the exploited.

 

It transforms legitimate social frustration into prejudice against fellow victims of the same economic system.

 

The result is political paralysis.

 

Workers divided against workers cannot challenge capital.

 

Peasants divided against peasants cannot challenge landlordism.

 

Youth divided against youth cannot challenge unemployment.

 

Imperialism governs most effectively when the oppressed mistrust one another more than they mistrust their exploiters.

 

Communists reject this logic entirely.

 

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya recognises that discrimination against queer people weakens the unity of the democratic movement. Every act of prejudice encouraged by the ruling classes creates another obstacle to revolutionary organisation. Every campaign of hatred diverts attention from the central task of confronting imperialism and its local collaborators.

 

This does not mean ignoring ideological differences that exist within society.

 

Kenya remains a deeply religious nation.

 

Religious belief forms an important part of the lives of millions of workers and peasants. Revolutionaries neither ridicule nor dismiss the sincere convictions of the masses. Marxism teaches that political work among the people proceeds through patient education, democratic discussion and concrete participation in their daily struggles. Genuine unity cannot be built through contempt or coercion.

 

Equally, religious conviction cannot become a justification for discrimination, violence or state repression against any section of the people.

 

The revolutionary movement must consistently defend democratic rights while struggling to transform the material conditions that reproduce exploitation, poverty and social division.

 

This requires distinguishing between the masses and the ruling classes.

 

The ordinary worker holding conservative social views is not the principal enemy of the revolution.

 

The peasant influenced by inherited traditions is not the principal enemy.

 

The unemployed youth shaped by prevailing cultural attitudes is not the principal enemy.

 

The principal enemy remains imperialism, and the primary enemy remains the comprador bourgeoisie, landlordism and the neo colonial state that protects them.

 

Revolutionary politics seeks to unite the broadest possible democratic forces against this common enemy while patiently overcoming prejudice through collective struggle and political education.

 

History repeatedly demonstrates that workers fighting together develop new forms of solidarity impossible under conditions of isolation.

 

Shared strikes weaken ethnic divisions.

 

Land occupations weaken regional antagonisms.

 

Mass movements weaken sectarian prejudice.

 

The experience of common struggle transforms consciousness more profoundly than abstract lectures ever can.

 

This is the essence of the mass line.

 

Communists do not impose solutions upon the people from above.

 

We immerse ourselves among the masses, investigate their concrete conditions, learn from their experiences, synthesise these experiences through the science of Marxism Leninism and return them to the people in the form of political leadership capable of advancing the struggle.

 

The queer question must therefore be approached not as an imported ideological package but as part of the lived reality of Kenya’s exploited classes.

 

It must be addressed through workplace organisation.

 

Through peasant organisation.

 

Through student organisation.

 

Through women’s organisation.

 

Through youth organisation.

 

Through neighbourhood committees.

 

Through revolutionary political education.

 

Only when oppressed people recognise that their liberation is inseparable from the liberation of all exploited classes can the foundations of the neo colonial order begin to crumble.

 

For this reason, the Revolutionary Youth League and the Revolutionary Women League reject both reactionary persecution and liberal individualism.

 

We reject every attempt to isolate queer people from the broader democratic movement.

 

We reject every attempt to reduce liberation to private consumption, corporate visibility or donor funded advocacy.

 

Instead, we affirm a revolutionary path rooted in collective organisation, class unity, national liberation and socialist transformation.

 

The struggle against discrimination is not separate from the struggle against exploitation.

 

It is one front within the broader struggle to overthrow the neo colonial and semi feudal system and to construct a socialist Kenya in which every human being can participate fully in social production, cultural life and democratic governance without fear, poverty or oppression.

 

Reactionary Conservatism as an Instrument of Class Rule

 

Every ruling class requires an ideology capable of justifying its domination. Economic exploitation alone cannot sustain an unjust social order indefinitely. The exploited must also be persuaded that the existing order is natural, inevitable or divinely ordained. The institutions of the state, the education system, sections of the media and influential religious and cultural institutions become important vehicles through which the ruling ideas of the ruling class are reproduced.

 

Marx observed that the ruling ideas of every epoch are the ideas of its ruling class. This insight remains indispensable for understanding the political function of reactionary conservatism in contemporary Kenya.

 

The revolutionary movement must distinguish between the genuine religious beliefs of the masses and the political use of religion by the ruling classes.

 

Millions of Kenyan workers and peasants draw strength, comfort and moral guidance from their religious faith. Their beliefs are not the enemy of the revolution. They themselves are victims of imperialism, unemployment, landlessness, exploitation and state violence. The Communist Party Marxist Kenya neither mocks nor insults the sincerely held convictions of the people. Such arrogance would sever the revolutionary movement from the masses it seeks to serve.

 

The enemy lies elsewhere.

 

The enemy is found where religion is transformed into an ideological shield for exploitation.

 

Throughout history, exploiting classes have repeatedly sought to sanctify unjust social relations. Colonial conquest was justified as a civilising mission. The theft of African land was presented as divine providence. Forced labour became a moral obligation. Resistance was denounced as rebellion against God rather than rebellion against exploitation.

 

The colonial state did not merely occupy territory.

 

It sought to reshape consciousness.

 

Missionary institutions frequently accompanied colonial administration, teaching obedience to colonial authority while condemning anti colonial resistance. European legal systems imposed Victorian moral codes upon African societies, criminalising forms of social life that had previously been regulated through entirely different historical traditions. Many of the laws still invoked against queer people in Kenya today originated not within African civilisation but within the legal architecture of British colonial rule.

 

This historical irony exposes the profound hypocrisy of contemporary reactionaries.

 

Those who proclaim themselves defenders of authentic African values often defend legal codes imposed by British imperialism.

 

They denounce alleged foreign influence while preserving colonial legislation.

 

They condemn cultural imperialism while reproducing colonial morality.

 

The revolutionary movement must expose this contradiction relentlessly.

 

Yet reactionary conservatism performs functions extending beyond legal inheritance.

 

Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, it becomes an indispensable political instrument for the comprador ruling class.

 

When workers demand living wages, the ruling elite manufactures moral controversy.

 

When peasants organise against land grabbing, attention is redirected towards cultural disputes.

 

When youth challenge corruption, politicians suddenly discover the language of family values.

 

When police murder protesters, newspapers are encouraged to debate private morality instead of state violence.

 

This is not coincidence.

 

It is class politics.

 

Every hour devoted to moral panic is an hour diverted from questioning imperialist debt.

 

Every newspaper headline celebrating cultural warfare conceals another scandal involving public resources.

 

Every campaign encouraging workers to fear one another weakens the possibility of united resistance against monopoly capital.

 

The politics of scapegoating has always flourished during periods of capitalist crisis.

 

Unable to solve the contradictions generated by exploitation, ruling classes seek enemies among the oppressed themselves.

 

Migrants become responsible for unemployment.

 

Religious minorities become responsible for insecurity.

 

Ethnic communities become responsible for corruption.

 

Queer people become responsible for moral decline.

 

None of these explanations addresses the real causes of social misery.

 

They merely redirect public anger away from those who actually control wealth and political power.

 

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya rejects this politics of division.

 

We refuse to permit the working class to be fragmented through manufactured hatred.

 

We refuse to allow imperialism to escape responsibility by encouraging the oppressed to attack one another.

 

Our answer to unemployment is not persecution.

 

It is socialist industrialisation.

 

Our answer to poverty is not discrimination.

 

It is land redistribution, national development and workers’ power.

 

Our answer to social insecurity is not moral panic.

 

It is the destruction of the neo colonial state and the construction of a people’s democratic state founded upon the alliance of workers and peasants.

 

At the same time, revolutionaries must guard against another danger.

 

In opposing reactionary politics, we must never adopt the arrogance of liberal elites who dismiss the beliefs of ordinary people as backwardness requiring foreign instruction.

 

The masses are not empty vessels waiting to receive enlightenment from above.

 

They possess immense historical experience accumulated through generations of struggle against colonialism, exploitation and poverty.

 

Communists begin by listening.

 

We investigate.

 

We participate.

 

We learn.

 

Only then do we synthesise these experiences through Marxism Leninism and return them to the masses in a form capable of advancing revolutionary consciousness.

 

This is the essence of the mass line developed by Chairman Mao Zedong.

 

Contradictions among the people are not resolved through coercion.

 

They are resolved through persuasion, democratic discussion, common struggle and practical experience.

 

The revolutionary movement therefore approaches questions of sexuality and gender neither through denunciation nor through condescension.

 

We organise alongside workers regardless of their current level of political understanding.

 

We unite with all who can be united against imperialism.

 

We patiently struggle against prejudice wherever it weakens proletarian unity.

 

We expose the class interests served by every attempt to divide the oppressed.

 

In this process, experience itself becomes a powerful educator.

 

Workers standing together on a picket line discover solidarity that transcends prejudice.

 

Peasants resisting eviction discover common interests stronger than inherited suspicion.

 

Students confronting state repression discover that democratic rights cannot be defended selectively.

 

Communities resisting police brutality discover that injustice directed against one section of the people ultimately threatens all.

 

This is why communists insist that unity is forged through struggle.

 

Not through slogans.

 

Not through social media campaigns.

 

Not through donor funded workshops.

 

Through collective participation in transforming society.

 

Reactionary conservatism fears precisely this development.

 

It fears workers recognising their common enemy.

 

It fears peasants recognising the source of their dispossession.

 

It fears youth recognising that unemployment is not the consequence of personal failure but of a neo colonial economy subordinated to imperialist accumulation.

 

It fears queer workers recognising themselves not as isolated victims but as participants in the broader revolutionary movement of the Kenyan people.

 

The task of the Revolutionary Youth League and the Revolutionary Women League is therefore clear.

 

We must dismantle every ideological barrier preventing the unity of the exploited.

 

We must patiently expose the class interests concealed beneath campaigns of hatred.

 

We must transform moral panic into political clarity.

 

We must transform isolation into organisation.

 

We must transform fear into revolutionary confidence.

 

Only then can the broad democratic alliance necessary for the victory of the National Democratic Revolution emerge in its full strength.

 

The future of Kenya will not be determined by those who preach division.

 

It will be determined by the organised power of workers, peasants, youth, women and all oppressed people united against imperialism, comprador capitalism and landlordism.

 

That unity remains our greatest weapon.

 

That unity remains the greatest fear of the ruling classes.

 

Liberal Reformism, Rainbow Capitalism and the NGO Industrial Complex

 

If reactionary conservatism constitutes one strategy through which the ruling classes contain the aspirations of the oppressed, liberal reformism constitutes another. The former governs through exclusion and repression. The latter governs through incorporation and accommodation. Their methods differ, yet their objective remains fundamentally the same. Both seek to preserve the existing social order.

 

Liberalism presents capitalism as a neutral system capable of delivering justice provided it becomes more inclusive. According to this view, exploitation is not the defining characteristic of capitalist society. The problem is simply that certain groups have not yet been fully incorporated into its institutions.

 

This is the illusion upon which rainbow capitalism is built.

 

Rainbow capitalism does not seek to abolish exploitation.

 

It seeks to diversify the identities of those who administer exploitation.

 

It celebrates the appointment of queer executives to multinational corporations while remaining silent about the workers whose labour generates corporate profit.

 

It applauds diversity within financial institutions while ignoring the debts that condemn entire nations to dependency.

 

It welcomes representation within boardrooms while factories remain sites of low wages, unsafe working conditions and anti-union repression.

 

Under capitalism, visibility is converted into a commodity.

 

Identity becomes a marketing strategy.

 

Liberation becomes a brand.

 

Corporations drape themselves in rainbow colours during one month of the year while continuing throughout the remaining months to suppress strikes, outsource production, casualise labour and maximise profit at the expense of workers across the world.

 

The contradiction is unmistakable.

 

A corporation does not cease to exploit because it changes the colours of its logo.

 

A bank does not become progressive because it sponsors a parade.

 

A multinational corporation does not become emancipatory because it appoints a more diverse management team.

 

The extraction of surplus value remains unchanged.

 

The ownership of the means of production remains unchanged.

 

The exploitation of labour remains unchanged.

 

The liberal project therefore transforms the language of liberation into an instrument for stabilising capitalism.

 

It encourages oppressed people to seek advancement as individuals rather than organising collectively as a class.

 

Success becomes measured by proximity to existing centres of power rather than by the transformation of society itself.

 

The worker is encouraged to dream of becoming a chief executive rather than abolishing the social relations that produce exploitation.

 

The tenant is encouraged to admire successful property owners rather than questioning the concentration of land ownership.

 

The unemployed graduate is encouraged to celebrate entrepreneurial success stories while structural unemployment continues to expand.

 

This ideological framework fragments collective struggle.

 

The oppressed are encouraged to compete for limited opportunities within the existing order instead of questioning why that order continually reproduces inequality.

 

The same logic increasingly characterises sections of what has become known as the NGO industrial complex.

 

It is necessary here to make an important distinction.

 

Not every non-governmental organisation serves identical political functions.

 

Many sincere individuals work within community organisations providing legal assistance, healthcare, humanitarian support and other important services under difficult conditions. Their commitment should not be dismissed simply because of the institutional form through which they operate.

 

Marxists do not judge organisations by labels alone.

 

We examine their political practice; their class orientation and the material interests they ultimately serve.

 

Our critique is directed towards those sections of the NGO sector that function as instruments of liberal governance within the neo colonial order.

 

Over several decades, imperialist governments, international financial institutions and private foundations have invested enormous resources in constructing a professionalised layer of civil society whose political horizon rarely extends beyond policy reform, legal advocacy and donor accountability.

 

This process has transformed many genuine social grievances into projects administered through funding cycles, consultancy reports and measurable outputs.

 

Struggle becomes professionalised.

 

Organisation becomes project management.

 

Political education becomes capacity building.

 

Cadres become consultants.

 

Communities become beneficiaries.

 

The language itself reveals the transformation.

 

The people cease to appear as makers of history.

 

They become recipients of programmes designed elsewhere.

 

The mass line is replaced by strategic planning.

 

Collective mobilisation is replaced by stakeholder engagement.

 

Revolutionary organisation is replaced by advocacy campaigns carefully calibrated to remain compatible with donor priorities.

 

This transformation does not occur because individual activists lack commitment.

 

It arises from the structural logic of dependency.

 

An organisation financed by institutions embedded within the existing global order encounters objective limits upon the political positions it can consistently maintain.

 

Funding shapes priorities.

 

Reporting requirements shape methods.

 

Institutional survival gradually becomes inseparable from political moderation.

 

The result is a form of politics that seeks reform without rupture.

 

Participation without power.

 

Representation without transformation.

 

The revolutionary movement must resist this depoliticisation.

 

The purpose of organisation is not merely to negotiate improved management of exploitation.

 

It is to abolish exploitation itself.

 

The purpose of political education is not simply to familiarise people with existing legal frameworks.

 

It is to equip the masses with the theoretical and organisational capacity necessary to transform society.

 

The purpose of democratic struggle is not simply to secure recognition from the neo colonial state.

 

It is to construct a new state founded upon the democratic power of workers and peasants.

 

For this reason, the Revolutionary Youth League and the Revolutionary Women League insist that the emancipation of oppressed gender and sexual minorities cannot be subcontracted to donors, foundations or international development agencies.

 

It must emerge through the organised activity of the masses themselves.

 

The workplace remains a school of revolutionary consciousness.

 

The university remains a site of ideological struggle.

 

The estate committee remains a foundation for community organisation.

 

The peasant association remains indispensable for confronting landlordism and agrarian exploitation.

 

The trade union remains an essential instrument for building proletarian unity.

 

The revolutionary party remains the highest organised expression of the political interests of the working class.

 

Only these forms of organisation possess the capacity to unite the democratic struggles of the people into a coherent revolutionary movement.

 

This does not require rejecting every immediate reform.

 

Marxists have never opposed democratic gains that improve the conditions under which the masses struggle.

 

Legal protections against discrimination.

 

Freedom of association.

 

Democratic rights.

 

Access to healthcare.

 

Protection against arbitrary arrest.

 

These are important achievements worth defending.

 

Yet they cannot become the horizon of revolutionary politics.

 

Every democratic victory must strengthen the confidence, organisation and independence of the masses.

 

Every reform must become a stepping stone towards deeper transformation.

 

Every struggle must reveal more clearly the limitations of capitalism and the necessity of socialism.

 

This is the decisive distinction between revolutionary and liberal politics.

 

Liberalism asks how capitalism can become more inclusive.

 

Marxism asks how humanity can move beyond capitalism altogether.

 

Liberalism celebrates the diversity of elites.

 

Marxism organises the unity of the exploited.

 

Liberalism measures progress through representation.

 

Marxism measures progress through the growing capacity of the working class to exercise political power.

 

For this reason, we reject both corporate Pride and donor managed politics as substitutes for revolutionary organisation.

 

The future will not be won through branding campaigns.

 

It will not be secured through carefully worded corporate statements.

 

It will not emerge from conference halls insulated from the everyday struggles of workers and peasants.

 

It will be built through factories organised by workers.

 

Through campuses transformed into centres of revolutionary education.

 

Through villages resisting land dispossession.

 

Through estates defending democratic rights.

 

Through women leading struggles against exploitation and patriarchy.

 

Through youth refusing unemployment, despair and imperialist domination.

 

Above all, it will be built through a Communist Party rooted among the masses, guided by Marxism Leninism and strengthened by the living experience of the people.

 

Only such a movement can transform Pride from a seasonal spectacle into a permanent school of revolutionary struggle.

 

Only such a movement can unite every oppressed person beneath the banner of national liberation and socialism.

 

Imperialist Pinkwashing and the Political Economy of Neo Colonialism

 

Imperialism has never been a humanitarian project.

 

From the conquest of Africa to the occupation of Palestine, from the partition of continents to the imposition of structural adjustment programmes, imperialism has advanced through conquest, plunder, coercion and the systematic extraction of wealth from the labour of oppressed peoples. Its language changes with every historical epoch, but its economic essence remains constant.

 

In the nineteenth century imperialism proclaimed the civilising mission.

 

In the twentieth century it proclaimed the defence of democracy against communism.

 

In the twenty first century it increasingly speaks the language of human rights, diversity and inclusion.

 

The vocabulary has changed.

 

The relations of domination have not.

 

This transformation reflects neither moral progress nor ideological consistency. It reflects the adaptability of monopoly capitalism. Imperialism continually adopts whatever language best serves its strategic interests while abandoning that language whenever it becomes inconvenient.

 

The same governments that condemn discrimination in one country often cultivate alliances with reactionary regimes elsewhere when doing so protects strategic military, economic or geopolitical interests.

 

The same political leaders who invoke universal rights selectively ignore those rights whenever they obstruct imperialist objectives.

 

This contradiction is not hypocrisy alone.

 

It is the political logic of imperialism.

 

Principles become instruments of foreign policy.

 

Human rights become diplomatic weapons.

 

Humanitarian concern becomes ideological cover for intervention, sanctions and economic domination.

 

Within this broader strategy emerges what has become known as pinkwashing.

 

Pinkwashing refers to the appropriation of the language of queer liberation in order to obscure, justify or legitimise policies that perpetuate oppression in other forms.

 

Imperialist states present themselves as enlightened defenders of freedom while simultaneously supporting military occupations, financing wars, imposing sanctions and sustaining systems of economic domination that devastate millions of lives.

 

The image of progress is deployed to conceal the reality of exploitation.

 

This phenomenon must be analysed carefully.

 

Communists do not oppose democratic rights because imperialism attempts to manipulate them.

 

Nor do we deny the genuine struggles of oppressed gender and sexual minorities because ruling classes seek to appropriate their language.

 

To abandon democratic struggles simply because imperialism speaks about them would surrender those struggles to the class enemy.

 

Instead, Marxists expose the contradiction.

 

We defend democratic rights from a revolutionary standpoint while rejecting their instrumentalisation for imperialist purposes.

 

The peoples of Africa understand this contradiction through lived experience.

 

For generations, imperialist powers have lectured the continent about democracy while supporting dictatorships that guaranteed access to raw materials.

 

They have spoken about development while enforcing debt regimes that crippled national economies.

 

They have condemned corruption while maintaining intimate relations with comprador elites who transferred public wealth into foreign banks.

 

They have spoken about peace while fuelling militarisation across the continent.

 

Today, sections of the same imperialist establishment increasingly invoke the language of queer liberation as evidence of their moral superiority.

 

Yet these declarations rarely extend to questioning the global economic order through which millions remain trapped in poverty.

 

They rarely challenge multinational corporations that extract Africa’s minerals while leaving behind ecological devastation and impoverished communities.

 

They rarely confront unequal trade relations that subordinate African development to foreign capital.

 

They rarely question military alliances that entrench dependency and external control.

 

The contradiction becomes particularly visible when imperialist powers attempt to present themselves as guardians of African progress while continuing to defend an international system built upon unequal exchange.

 

No people can achieve genuine emancipation under conditions of national subordination.

 

National sovereignty is not opposed to human liberation.

 

It is one of its essential conditions.

 

Without political independence, economic independence remains impossible.

 

Without economic independence, democratic rights remain vulnerable to external manipulation.

 

Without popular sovereignty, development becomes subordinated to foreign accumulation.

 

For this reason, the Communist Party Marxist Kenya insists that every democratic struggle within Kenya must be connected to the struggle against neo colonial domination.

 

The liberation of queer workers cannot be entrusted to governments whose foreign policy rests upon military alliances, unequal trade agreements and financial institutions that impoverish the Global South.

 

Nor can it be entrusted to multinational corporations whose profits depend upon the exploitation of African labour.

 

The revolutionary movement must maintain complete political independence from every faction of imperialism.

 

This independence is not isolation.

 

It is proletarian internationalism.

 

Communists extend solidarity to workers, peasants and oppressed peoples in every country.

 

We stand with those resisting occupation.

 

We stand with those resisting colonialism.

 

We stand with those resisting fascism.

 

We stand with those resisting imperialist aggression.

 

Our solidarity is determined not by the foreign policy interests of powerful states but by the common struggle of the international working class.

 

For this reason, we reject every attempt to weaponise democratic rights against nations resisting imperialist domination.

 

We reject the cynical use of progressive language to justify economic coercion or political interference.

 

We reject the false choice between imperialist liberalism and reactionary nationalism.

 

Both ultimately preserve class rule.

 

The first seeks domination through incorporation.

 

The second seeks domination through exclusion.

 

The revolutionary alternative is entirely different.

 

It is national liberation led by the working class.

 

It is democracy rooted in the organised power of workers and peasants.

 

It is socialism founded upon collective ownership of the commanding heights of the economy.

 

It is international solidarity among oppressed peoples struggling against every form of exploitation.

 

The history of Africa demonstrates that imperialism never voluntarily abandons its privileges.

 

Every concession won by the oppressed has emerged through determined struggle.

 

Every victory against colonialism has required organisation, sacrifice and political clarity.

 

The same remains true today.

 

The liberation of oppressed gender and sexual minorities cannot be separated from this broader historical movement.

 

It cannot be achieved through imperialist patronage.

 

It cannot be secured through corporate philanthropy.

 

It cannot be guaranteed by institutions whose material interests depend upon maintaining the existing international order.

 

It must arise from the conscious activity of the masses themselves.

 

From workers organised in trade unions.

 

From peasants organised in revolutionary associations.

 

From students organised in militant movements.

 

From women organised against exploitation and patriarchy.

 

From youth organised against unemployment, corruption and imperialist domination.

 

Above all, it must be guided by a revolutionary party capable of uniting these democratic struggles into a coherent movement for national liberation and socialism.

 

Only through such political independence can democratic struggles avoid becoming instruments of imperialist strategy.

 

Only through such revolutionary clarity can Pride recover its original spirit of resistance.

 

Only through such organisation can the banner of liberation remain in the hands of the oppressed rather than becoming another ornament adorning the institutions of imperial power.

 

The Revolutionary Programme of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya

 

The task of revolutionaries is not merely to criticise the existing order.

 

It is to organise the forces capable of overthrowing it.

 

Marxism Leninism has never been a philosophy of passive observation. It is the science of revolutionary transformation. Every theoretical analysis must culminate in practical organisation. Every investigation of social reality must strengthen the capacity of the oppressed to change that reality.

 

The queer question in Kenya cannot therefore remain an object of academic discussion or ideological controversy. It must become part of the organised struggle of the Kenyan people against imperialism, landlordism and comprador capitalism.

 

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya approaches this task through the strategy of the National Democratic Revolution.

 

The National Democratic Revolution is neither an abstract slogan nor a mere electoral programme.

 

It is the concrete path through which the broad masses of workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, patriotic youth, women and progressive sections of the petty bourgeoisie unite under the leadership of the proletariat to defeat imperialism, uproot semi feudal relations and establish a people’s democratic state capable of advancing towards socialism.

 

This revolutionary alliance is not built by ignoring the contradictions that exist among the people.

 

It is built by identifying the principal contradiction confronting society and uniting every force capable of resolving it.

 

Today, the principal contradiction in Kenya remains the contradiction between imperialism and the broad masses of the Kenyan people.

 

Imperialism remains the decisive obstacle to national development.

 

It determines the structure of the economy.

 

It influences the priorities of the state.

 

It shapes the direction of public policy.

 

It protects monopoly capital.

 

It strengthens the comprador bourgeoisie.

 

It perpetuates dependency.

 

Every democratic struggle must therefore strengthen the capacity of the people to defeat this system.

 

The struggle against discrimination directed towards queer people is one such democratic struggle.

 

The struggle against patriarchy is another.

 

The struggle against youth unemployment.

 

The struggle against land dispossession.

 

The struggle against police brutality.

 

The struggle for free public education.

 

The struggle for universal healthcare.

 

The struggle for workers’ rights.

 

The struggle for food sovereignty.

 

These are not isolated campaigns.

 

They are different fronts of one revolutionary movement.

 

The Party therefore rejects every attempt to fragment the people into competing constituencies whose political horizons never extend beyond their own immediate grievances.

 

The ruling classes benefit when workers struggle only as workers.

 

When women struggle only as women.

 

When youth struggle only as youth.

 

When queer people struggle only as queer people.

 

When peasants struggle only as peasants.

 

Such fragmentation leaves imperialism untouched.

 

Communists pursue a different path.

 

We transform democratic struggles into revolutionary consciousness.

 

We unite immediate demands with the strategic objective of state power.

 

We demonstrate through practice that every partial victory remains insecure so long as the economic foundations of exploitation remain intact.

 

The Revolutionary Youth League and the Revolutionary Women League therefore reject politics founded upon symbolism alone.

 

Representation without transformation is insufficient.

 

Visibility without organisation is insufficient.

 

Recognition without economic emancipation is insufficient.

 

Our programme begins where liberal politics ends.

 

We organise in workplaces because exploitation occurs in production.

 

We organise in villages because land remains central to national liberation.

 

We organise on campuses because students constitute an important reserve of the revolutionary movement.

 

We organise in estates because communities become schools of democratic participation.

 

We organise among women because patriarchy remains intertwined with class exploitation.

 

We organise among youth because imperialism condemns an entire generation to unemployment, precarity and despair.

 

We organise among oppressed gender and sexual minorities because every section of the exploited strengthens the revolutionary movement when united around the programme of the working class.

 

Organisation remains our principal weapon.

 

Without organisation, anger dissipates.

 

Without organisation, courage becomes isolated.

 

Without organisation, sacrifice is forgotten.

 

Without organisation, the ruling classes recover every concession they temporarily surrender.

 

For this reason, the Party places enormous emphasis upon political education.

 

Every cadre must master the science of Marxism Leninism.

 

Every organiser must learn the mass line.

 

Every revolutionary must investigate concrete conditions before proposing solutions.

 

Every democratic struggle must become a school in which the people learn through their own experience that imperialism and capitalism cannot be reformed into serving the interests of the masses.

 

The revolutionary movement must also embody the society it seeks to build.

 

Within our organisations there can be no place for discrimination based upon ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender or sexuality.

 

The discipline of a communist derives from proletarian morality.

 

Comrades judge one another by political commitment, revolutionary discipline, honesty, service to the people and dedication to collective struggle.

 

The Party neither tolerates exploitation within its own ranks nor reproduces the divisions cultivated by the ruling classes.

 

The revolutionary movement must become the living example of the unity it seeks to achieve throughout society.

 

Our strategic objective therefore extends beyond defending democratic rights.

 

We seek to transform the economic foundations of Kenya itself.

 

We struggle for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy.

 

We struggle for genuine agrarian revolution.

 

We struggle for workers’ democratic control over production.

 

We struggle for planned socialist development directed towards meeting human needs rather than private profit.

 

We struggle for scientific education accessible to every child.

 

We struggle for universal public healthcare.

 

We struggle for decent housing.

 

We struggle for meaningful employment.

 

We struggle for culture liberated from commodification.

 

We struggle for a state accountable to organised workers and peasants rather than to monopoly capital.

 

Within such a society, human dignity will no longer depend upon wealth, privilege or inherited status.

 

The conditions that nourish discrimination will steadily disappear as exploitation itself is overcome.

 

Communists understand that socialism does not magically abolish every contradiction inherited from class society.

 

Old ideas survive long after old economic structures begin to disappear.

 

Reactionary attitudes require persistent ideological struggle.

 

Yet socialism creates, for the first time in history, the material foundation upon which humanity can consciously overcome those inherited divisions.

 

Only a society organised around cooperation rather than competition can consistently cultivate solidarity instead of prejudice.

 

Only a society liberated from the dictatorship of profit can place human development above private accumulation.

 

Only socialism provides the historical possibility for the fullest development of every individual because only socialism abolishes the exploitation of one human being by another.

 

This is the future for which the Communist Party Marxist Kenya fights.

 

Not a more colourful capitalism.

 

Not a kinder imperialism.

 

Not a more inclusive neo colonialism.

 

But a socialist Kenya built by the organised power of its workers and peasants, united with the oppressed peoples of Africa and the world in the common struggle against imperialism.

 

The path will not be easy.

 

The ruling classes will resist.

 

Imperialism will intervene.

 

Reaction will attempt to divide us.

 

Liberalism will attempt to pacify us.

 

Yet history demonstrates that no force has ever permanently defeated a people organised around a just cause, guided by scientific theory and rooted among the masses.

 

The future belongs not to those who administer exploitation.

 

It belongs to those who organise for its abolition.

 

It belongs to the revolutionary people.

 

It belongs to socialism.

 

Organise, Educate, Struggle: A Call to the Revolutionary Youth of Kenya

 

Comrades,

 

History does not wait.

 

History does not pause for those who hesitate.

 

History advances through the organised activity of the masses.

 

Every generation is confronted with a decisive question. Will it reconcile itself to oppression, or will it rise to transform society?

 

That question now confronts the revolutionary youth of Kenya.

 

We stand at a moment of profound crisis.

 

Imperialism has entered a period of deepening instability. The old neo colonial order can no longer guarantee secure employment, affordable housing, accessible healthcare or meaningful opportunities for the overwhelming majority of our people. The promises of liberal democracy have collapsed beneath the weight of corruption, unemployment, debt, land dispossession and state repression.

 

The comprador ruling class possesses neither the vision nor the capacity to resolve this crisis.

 

Unable to satisfy the material needs of the people, it governs increasingly through coercion, manipulation and division.

 

It divides workers against workers.

 

It divides youth against youth.

 

It divides communities against one another.

 

It manufactures ethnic antagonism.

 

It encourages misogyny.

 

It fuels chauvinism.

 

It exploits prejudice.

 

Every division weakens the people.

 

Every division strengthens imperialism.

 

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya calls upon every revolutionary youth to reject this politics of fragmentation.

 

The exploited have no interest in fighting one another.

 

The landless peasant has no quarrel with the unemployed graduate.

 

The factory worker has no quarrel with the market vendor.

 

The queer worker has no quarrel with the heterosexual worker.

 

The Muslim worker has no quarrel with the Christian worker.

 

The Luo worker has no quarrel with the Kikuyu worker.

 

The Kalenjin peasant has no quarrel with the Luhya peasant.

 

Our quarrel is with the system that exploits us all.

 

Our quarrel is with imperialism.

 

Our quarrel is with comprador capitalism.

 

Our quarrel is with landlordism.

 

Our quarrel is with the neo colonial state that defends these interests through violence, corruption and deception.

 

This understanding must become the foundation of a new revolutionary unity.

 

That unity cannot remain a slogan.

 

It must be organised.

 

The Revolutionary Youth League exists to organise the revolutionary energy of young workers, students and unemployed youth into a disciplined political force guided by Marxism Leninism and the mass line.

 

The Revolutionary Women League exists to organise women against every form of exploitation and oppression while strengthening the leadership of women throughout the revolutionary movement.

 

Together, these organisations serve as mass organisations of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya, linking the Party to the broad democratic struggles of the Kenyan people and developing new generations of communist cadres capable of leading the National Democratic Revolution.

 

We therefore call upon every young person who refuses exploitation to organise.

 

Study the science of Marxism Leninism.

 

Join a Party study circle.

 

Participate in political education.

 

Organise your workplace.

 

Organise your campus.

 

Organise your estate.

 

Organise your village.

 

Organise your trade union.

 

Organise your tenants’ association.

 

Organise your peasant committee.

 

Organise your community.

 

Where the people are found, there the revolutionary must also be found.

 

Do not wait for favourable conditions.

 

Create them.

 

Do not wait for perfect circumstances.

 

Transform existing circumstances through organisation.

 

Do not mistake outrage for organisation.

 

Outrage without organisation disappears.

 

Organisation transforms outrage into political power.

 

Do not mistake visibility for liberation.

 

Visibility without revolutionary power remains vulnerable.

 

Only organised people can defend democratic gains.

 

Only organised people can overthrow systems of exploitation.

 

Only organised people make history.

 

Pride Month must therefore become something far greater than an annual commemoration.

 

It must become a season of recruitment.

 

A season of ideological education.

 

A season of building Red Cells in workplaces, campuses and communities.

 

A season of strengthening revolutionary unity among all oppressed sections of the Kenyan people.

 

Every conversation should become political education.

 

Every workplace should become a site of organisation.

 

Every campus should become a centre of revolutionary thought.

 

Every community should become a school of collective struggle.

 

Every cadre should become an organiser.

 

Every organiser should become an educator.

 

Every educator should become a servant of the people.

 

This is the spirit of the mass line.

 

This is the spirit of scientific socialism.

 

This is the spirit that animated every great revolutionary movement in history.

 

The future will not be won by corporations displaying rainbow colours.

 

It will not be won by imperialist governments issuing carefully crafted statements.

 

It will not be won by foundations distributing grants.

 

It will not be won by politicians making promises every election cycle.

 

It will be won by organised workers.

 

By organised peasants.

 

By organised women.

 

By organised youth.

 

By organised students.

 

By organised communities.

 

By a Communist Party rooted among the people and guided by Marxism Leninism.

 

The road ahead demands courage.

 

It demands discipline.

 

It demands sacrifice.

 

Above all, it demands unwavering confidence in the revolutionary capacity of the masses.

 

The people are the makers of history.

 

The people defeated colonialism.

 

The people built trade unions.

 

The people defended democratic rights.

 

The people will defeat neo colonialism.

 

The people will build socialism.

 

Comrades, the future is calling.

 

Let us answer not with words alone but with organisation.

 

Not with despair but with struggle.

 

Not with isolation but with unity.

 

Not with accommodation but with revolution.

 

Join the Revolutionary Youth League.

 

Join the Revolutionary Women League.

 

Join the Communist Party Marxist Kenya.

 

Study.

 

Organise.

 

Agitate.

 

Mobilise.

 

Serve the People.

 

Advance the National Democratic Revolution.

 

Forward to a People’s Democratic State.

 

Forward to Scientific Socialism.

 

Forward to the complete liberation of Kenya, Africa and humanity from imperialism, exploitation and oppression.

 

Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!

 

Long live the Revolutionary Youth League!

 

Long live the Revolutionary Women League!

 

Long live the Communist Party Marxist Kenya!

 

Long live proletarian internationalism!

 

Victory to the National Democratic Revolution!

 

Forward to Scientific Socialism!