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Ben, I haven't read your entire page on resolving the crisis of theory, but one potential problem grabbed my attention. You state: "In any country with a modern economy and communications infrastructure (ie: where the majority of the population has internet connectivity) the systematic struggle for ideas on a mass scale will make it impossible for any exploiting class to suppress information about any political trend. This is something new in the world, a change of enormous significance." You wrote a little earlier about how the bourgeois will face measures to ensure that they don't regain power but will never have their voices stifled. Presumably through persuasion, the proletariat would be able to use the internet and other media to persuade the masses that a return to bourgeois rule will not be desirable. While I think most of your ideas are very sound, I think your theory on information war carries a very big caveat. Consider this sentence: "In any country with a modern economy and communications infrastructure (ie: where the majority of the population has internet connectivity)" If we are to carry the "mass line," then technological access and literacy will have to be a major issue. At times, the comforts of our own culture fail to recognize potential roadblocks that others may face along the way, as you allude to in your opening. The majority of the world's people don't use silverware, and they probably don't use a mouse or keyboard, either. People without access to the internet might only receive the distorted news that the bourgeois feed them, risking the mass support for the revolution and potentially growing a reactionary trend. Even some of the bourgeois currently in control acknowledge the existence of a "digital divide" within the Unit
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ed States, and the problem will be worse on a global scale. One potential method for countering the "digital divide" (beyond technological remedies) might be some kind of local, indigenous democratic system of government, which facilitates the transmission of information and collective decision making. We should not overlook the possibilities that these indigenous forms might be racist or patriarchal, but I think ideally the people should find their own way to engage the system than have us impose something from the outside that they will be resistant to. I think you're right that the internet will see continuing growth due to its economic benefits and that transparent government and freedom for dissent are absolutely essential for a communist struggle.