Iranian Immigrants on Watching Bob Avakian’s Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution

A Call to Those Whose Hearts Are Aching

November 12, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

To revcom.us:

We, a small group of Iranian immigrants living here in U.S., after watching the film of a talk given by comrade Bob Avakian last summer, are writing this letter to tell you about our experience with this film and to invite, encourage and really challenge others whose hearts are aching when hearing and seeing the world of horrors that humanity is going through throughout the world to really put aside some time and really, as soon as you can, sit down with a few friends, relatives and loved ones to watch this film. This film educates you, tells you why the world is the way it is and how it does not have to be this way anymore, and how another world is possible. But more than that, the film invites you in to see that you and others can become part of the bridge to revolution, to another and much better future. This film will change you as it changed all of us in one way or the other.

Through watching BA’s latest talk/film, we were inspired to start studying THE NEW COMMUNISM with the hope of contributing as much as we can to bringing forward another and much better world for humanity everywhere, a communist world based on the new synthesis of communism.

If you are looking at the world and your heart aches:

• Seeing kids yanked away from their parents. Now, on top of that, if they stay alive, they will face barbed wire and armed U.S. Military and their openly white supremacist fascist militia on the border. People flee their countries not because U.S. or Europe is heaven to go to... it is the only choice left for the people. It is analogous to the choices people had when the apartment complex in England caught on fire—stay and burn to death or throw yourself from the rooftop or the window to the mercy of where you land.
• Hearing about the death and destruction in every corner of the world, Black people and other minorities here in America and people of other countries who are looked at and treated worse than animals. Just spend a minute and look at those kids in Yemen, skin and bone...
• Witnessing women treated as commodities and forced by dominant patriarchal relations under many layers of chains from one end of the world to another... for profit, and pleasure of others....

We have a responsibility to act... and we should start now.

It has become very clear to us what Bob Avakian, simply puts forward “...we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!” We have come to realize even more clearly than before watching this film that we do not want to live in this nightmare and we have confidence that you do not want that either. We found out that we do have a role to play, not in the future but now, with the joy of bringing a new world for the future generations.

Watching the new film was real and exactly what the title was promising to deliver. We encountered a subject/concept that we had never understood firmly. How to make a revolution in the strongest, most heartless and vicious country in the history of human beings, given what more it is capable of and most likely is planning to do given the fascist vision of this regime under Donald Trump. They really do hold the world hostage through their crimes. They are able and willing to do more for their expansion and profit and more. This is their strength that we seriously should not and can not downplay. We have experienced that each personally/collectively.

On the other hand, we learned how we should and could arm ourselves with the science of revolution to understand the real world the way it is and the way it can change, to prepare ourselves, as a force for revolution for a time when millions would no longer tolerate the crimes of this system, and want to act.

We learned a great deal about each of the 5 Stops—the horrors they represent. At the same time, each and all will force masses of the people of different strata to react. When those millions do come into the street against one or more crimes of this system, as people did in Iran or Egypt and more ... they need to have a plan, guideline, strategy and a leadership. This time we should seize on their weakness and play our role to contribute to leading these millions for a real chance of a communist revolution, to put an end to this imperialist America once and for all in the interest of the humanity by providing them with the new synthesis of communism—the method and the science and the leadership of Bob Avakian, the architect of the new communism.

Comrade Avakian very precisely and delicately spoke to certain critical issues that clarified concepts that were unknown or complicated for us. Up until watching this film we honestly did not think that such a revolution is possible here. We learned how we could play a role and be part of the movement for revolution as well act as reserve forces of revolution to keep up the momentum of the revolution and meet its multiple needs now and when the revolutionary forces engage the enemy head on and all out. This film answered a lot of questions we had and at the same time raised many questions that we did not think we had before watching this film.

It was very useful to learn about the 5 Stops and how these are historic concentrations of contradictions this system of capitalism-imperialism can not solve.

The first separation of men and women and its relationship to the private ownership of the means of production and how interwoven they are and how one can not be done away with without the other... without the elimination of capitalist accumulation and exchange... WOW! We had to stop the film many, many times not just for translation, but it was monumental to digest the layer upon layer, and then, WOW! again as it became clear how important it is to fight the power now, and even how much more important it is to transform the people for revolution, and yes through struggle. This last battle around stopping Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, for example, shows how crucial it is to struggle with people who really care about one or more of these 5 Stops and why THIS SYSTEM IS NOT REFORMABLE AND MUST BE OVERTHROWN.

This same method pierced through other stops—attacks on immigrants, attacks on Blacks and other people of color, minorities, attacks on the environment and wars of empires—that its impact is not just on us and new generations but for generations to come IF THERE WOULD STILL BE THE CHANCE FOR SUCH A FUTURE... and all of that not because of the capitalist or individual greed, rather for the survival of this system of capitalism-imperialism itself.

One of the key concepts that stood out for us was the understanding of HASTENING WHILE AWAITING, a significant principle of revolution and continuation of the revolution, and how Three Prepares¹—terrain, people and the vanguard—should be hastened in everything we do now from the perspective of the revolution back....

Another thing stood out so clearly, given the experience some of us have had in our country, was the concept of being serious and SCIENTIFIC about revolution. Even though all of us were serious—damn serious—and were ready to put everything on the line and we did, some of us, or maybe most of us, did not go at it scientifically. This is going to be the case in any revolution but should be looked at as a contradiction that will be with us, but our responsibility is to turn that necessity-contradiction, as Comrade Avakian puts it, into freedom. And here again what we learned about the political and ideological centralization and tactical and local decentralization and each of us becoming the leadership of all people, the oppressed whose everyday lives are hell under this system and others who could not stand these horrors any longer even if they do not suffer that hell directly....

It was really very important for us to watch and interact with this film collectively. We really enjoyed the collective wrangling with it and thanks for those who helped to translate and gave a framework to many wild questions and perspectives we had and those we did not know we had.

And the final point, and maybe the beginning point, is the challenge to our thinking that Comrade Avakian puts us on a scientific basis that communism is not inevitable. It is a science and science needs scientists, not only understanding what is but transforming the world and emancipating humanity, that is the challenge on all of us to become emancipators of humanity....

We should be frank: This was not easy. It was work for us and for comrades who helped translate and frame the discussion. Some of us were not sure that we were going to be able to go through the whole thing. But at the end we came to the point that we need more of it and that is why together we are going to study THE NEW COMMUNISM first and plan to study the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America right after that.

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1. The Three Prepares are: Prepare the Ground, Prepare the People, and Prepare the Vanguard—Get Ready for the Time When Millions Can Be Led to Go for Revolution, All-Out, With a Real Chance to Win.  [back]