Thoughts on Re-reading BA’s Memoir
January 6, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
I am in the middle of rereading BA’s memoir From Ike to Mao and Beyond and I really want to recommend doing so. I have read it a couple of times before, and every time I read it, I am provoked to think about new things, as well as think about some ‘old’ things differently. As I am reading it this time, I am repeatedly mentioning to the person I live with, and others, various things which strike me, either reflections on some historical things, or things which prompt me to think about current contradictions differently. In other words, there is a whole range of things in the memoir to get into and learn from, whether reading it for the first time or many times. Along with the overall impact of the memoir I wanted to share a couple of different things that struck me particularly at this point in my re-reading.
From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, A Memoir by Bob Avakian (Insight Press, 2005)
"Bob Avakian is a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism. His voice and witness are indispensable in our efforts to enhance the wretched of the earth. And his powerful story of commitment is timely." — Cornel West
Order From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, A Memoir by Bob Avakian
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One, a deep sense of how BA has fought for principle and in a principled way at every turn, as he consistently and deeply fought for the most advanced understanding as he saw it at any given time. He is always striving to step back to what the masses of people need and what that demanded of him. He recounts various line struggles—with various members of the Black Panther Party, individually and collectively; with different lines that came up in forming the Revolutionary Union (forerunner to the RCP) and then different lines within the RU; in the struggle to build a vanguard party with the RCP as the result and then in the split within the RCP after the reactionary coup in China. There is something very profound and hard fought in his method at all these junctures. It would have been possible for him to have gotten drawn into thinking that he should compromise his communist principles and proceed from the very real and important contradictions before the revolutionary movement—the need for unity of the revolutionary movement, even the urgent need for a vanguard party. But BA approaches these various line struggles from his deepest understanding of what is needed in the world to actually get rid of this system of horror and bloodshed of capitalism-imperialism—the principles in method and approach have to be applied or the result will not be worth getting, not getting disoriented by the popular thinking in the movement or discouraged by the setbacks including the monumental loss of China. You get a very deep and substantive feel for both the advanced role he was playing, and also how he learned and developed into a communist leader through these struggles and how through that process the line itself was deepened and became more scientific.
The second point is the importance of the vanguard party. There was very sharp line struggle and twists and turns into the whole process to forge this party. One point which really struck me was that in the early 1970s the need for the masses to have a vanguard party in order to make revolution was a mass question in the revolutionary and progressive movement. There were sharp disagreements about this—whether a vanguard party is necessary for the masses to make revolution, and around what principles and line would it be forged, but it was broadly debated and discussed. I was thinking about how the need for a vanguard party, THIS vanguard party—the RCP—in order for the masses to make revolution—needs to be such a mass question today, again broadly debated and discussed, with some people struggling to understand this more deeply, others sharply disagreeing and others trying to make up their minds as they consider the possibility of actually being able to make revolution when the time is right. The expanded slogan of “We ARE Building a Movement for Revolution and Building the Party as Its Leading Core” about the decisive role of building the party is a tremendous tool to be able to do this. The question of a vanguard party isn’t just a question for a handful of people who have decided to devote their lives, creativity, and energy to making revolution, already looking to the RCP for leadership in one form or another. We need to take out this new slogan about the critical importance of the party out very broadly to people of all strata—including importantly basic people in the neighborhoods and students and professors on campuses—as a key part of letting them know there is a way out of this madness.
As I said in the beginning, rereading the memoir provoked me to both appreciate more deeply some things in the past and to think about the implications of those things for the challenges we face today. Read it, reread it, give it to someone who is horrified by the world we live in today.
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