We all live now, in the present, but we let the past divide us. An inherited economic system, national loyalties and religious traditions divide people against each other. Guilt, regret and resentment divide an individual against himself. Attachment to the past is alienation from the present.
At the moment when we wake each morning, none of us has a nationality or religion. A moment later, we remember that we have been, eg, British and Christian and therefore think that that is what we still are. If memories could be modified during sleep, then we would, after waking up, think that we were instead, eg, Egyptian and Muslim.
Many people perceive the contradiction between the potential of the present and the legacy of the past but respond in different ways. Political activity addresses social divisions. Spiritual practice addresses psychological divisions. Political activity includes building the revolutionary party. Thus, there is an organization called "the Party" which is not yet a mass revolutionary organization but is trying to become that. Most of the time, the Party is uniquely disliked, even hated, by:
the economic rulers of society;
their managers and administrators;
public opinion - because the ruling ideas are those of the ruling class;
the bureaucratic labour movement which is incorporated into present society and therefore opposes independent working class action;
others on the left who resent any one organization claiming that it is even potentially the one that can lead social transformation;
campaigners on particular issues who resent the Party's generalization from those issues.
Thus, the Party agrees that racism, sexual oppression, war, poverty, pollution and nuclear weapons should be opposed but insists that these are aspects of a single problem that can be solved only by the revolutionary transformation of society.
Since the Party's ideas in fact reflect real conflicts, these ideas can lead social transformation when the majority seeks a genuine alternative but, most of the time, the Party engages with particular struggles and recruits a minority.
