On June 12, scores of people marched in each of three cities—Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago—to “Show the World: We Are Getting Organized Now for REVOLUTION, NOTHING LESS!” The June 12th marches nationwide were conceived, planned and organized as part of—and in the context of—making good on the call from the Revcoms in A Declaration, a Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution.

In Los Angeles, the march went through an area of South Central, mainly Black and Latino in demographics, to the LA Sheriff’s Station—home to armed, uniformed gangs of murderous enforcers for this system that inflict daily terror and brutality on the people. In New York City, they marched through the heart of Harlem to a local police precinct. There was also a march in South Side Chicago that went to the Englewood Chicago Police Department station.

The marches were led by Revolution Club members stepping and marching in formation—serious, determined, disciplined, with revolutionary élan and a conquering spirit... also, along with many others, expressing the joy and pride of being part of something that is pointing an emancipatory way out of the horrors humanity is caught in under the current system. The marches included some people very new to the revolution, who put on “Revolution—Nothing Less!” or “This System Has No Future for the Youth but the Revolution Does” T-shirts right on the spot. In LA, NYC and Chicago, people from different perspectives—some coming from other important struggles—came out in solidarity or made statements.

In Los Angeles, the call and response, to a drum beat, included “America First or Revolution... I choose Revolution... Killing each other or Revolution... I choose Revolution... Chasing dollars or Revolution... I choose Revolution...” The march stopped at five points where there was sharp agitation about the 5 STOPS, which are the key ways that people are suffering now, and for which this system has no solutions that are in the interests of humanity: white supremacy and police terror, the oppression and degradation of women and differently gendered people, the destruction of the environment, wars for empire, and the demonization and deportation of immigrants. Members of the Revolution Club read aloud excerpts from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution.

One of the most moving moments of the march was stopping at the site where Dijon Kizzee was murdered by the LA sheriffs, one of the incidents of police murder met with mass protests last year. Along with the defiant moment of raised fists, and the laying of a wreath with BAsics 1:13 from Bob Avakian at the Memorial site, there was a revolutionary pledge of “No More” to what this system inflicts and enforces in police murder and brutality.

People through the route of the march peered out windows, came out of their houses, and filmed. Significantly, the march itself was planned and carried out in significant part by people who have newly stepped into the revolution in recent weeks and who proudly wore the BA Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less! shirts. An important advance was the coming together in the neighborhood itself of people who are beginning to take this up and in some cases taking this out to others. A small but significant number came to the march and took active roles. This is an embryo of what is called for in A Declaration, a Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution and what needs to happen in huge numbers, at scale and on a more societal level.

In New York, five people stepped up and, on the basis of the 5 STOPS, tore up American flags and raised red flags with the words “Revolution, Nothing Less.”

A truck with a slamming loud sound system, decorated with banners “Get Organized Now for Revolution—Nothing Less” in English and Spanish and beautiful red flags flying high, went rolling down 125th Street, the heart of Harlem. The specter of a serious, righteous, and joyful force in the Revolution Club joined with others from Philadelphia and Boston, marching in formation behind the truck! People cheering and chanting and a few joining in and putting on the T-shirt proclaiming This System Has No Future For The Youth But The Revolution Does.

In Chicago, the march went through Englewood, one of the hardest neighborhoods on the South Side. At the police station, Revolution Club members read a statement in support of the June 12 march from family members of victims of murder by police—including by cops out of that precinct. A five-foot coffin marked “Capitalism/Imperialism” and “Bury this system” was opened as one after another people made statements and threw into the coffin symbols of what would be swept away and buried with this system: an American flag, a mylar blanket used by immigrants detained at the border, a pig mask and handcuffs, a Marine flag, a model of military equipment, a bloody coat hanger along with a sign saying “women are not bitches, ho’s, incubators, or punching bags.”

What the June 12 marches projected to the world—through the people stepping in a unified and disciplined way, the agitation exposing the crimes of this system, and the speeches especially by Noche Diaz in Los Angeles and Carl Dix in New York—was that there is an emerging force in the U.S. that is organizing NOW for an actual revolution, that is fighting for a whole different future... A force that is determined to spread the word widely that there is leadership for this revolution in Bob Avakian, who has developed an actual plan for how to defeat the brutal, monstrous system that rules over us and has written a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America... A force that is calling on all those who cannot stand the way the world is now to be part of this revolution that brings real hope, on a scientific basis, to humanity.

An overarching theme and clarion call of all the marches was what Bob Avakian (BA) has said:

...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!

Noche Diaz brought alive from the revcoms A Declaration, A Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution, which talks about how we are now in one of the rare times when revolution—a real revolution—becomes possible in a powerful country like the U.S. Agitating and struggling with the masses of people, he said: “Bob Avakian has pointed out there are two big weapons that they use to keep people down and keep people oppressed... They have all of their violence, their murder, their prisons. But also the way they catch people up thinking just like this system, living and dying for nothing but self, just like a capitalist except you ain’t got no capital... If we are going to make this revolution, we got to break down both of these weapons of this system’s oppression. We are going to have to break people out of the ways of thinking that keep them going along with all of this, keep them from getting into this revolution, keep them from thinking there is no hope in going up against this powerful enemy. And then we are going to have to prepare people, as this Declaration talks about, for the time when we can go all out and actually defeat and dismantle this system’s institutions of violence.”

Carl Dix said in the New York march, “Most of all, [referring to Bob Avakian] you have to get with this revolutionary leadership we have. This system is in a deep time of trouble. At the top, the Democrats and the Republi-fascists are divided up and fighting against each other. Their fight is over how to keep this system together. The masses of people do not have a dog in that fight. But because they’re fighting, it means their system is more vulnerable that it usually is. It creates openings for the revolution to seize on. And we have to do that.”

The June 12 marches were an important advance in projecting actual revolution and connecting people up with it, especially in oppressed areas where the boots of the rulers and their pigs come down hardest and most brutally. What came through as a whole, what was projected, was strategic confidence in revolution, and strategic contempt for this system and its enforcers. Revcoms stepped out with Bob Avakian, BA, and the leadership we have—and these were knit together with revolution, and this advance matters in how we go forward in organizing now for a real revolution. As Noche Diaz said in LA, “We have to continue from here forward. What we did today was beautiful and powerful, and it is a launching pad to go even further.” It is more urgent than ever to go forward and make good on what is called for in the Declaration from the revcoms:

We need a revolution—a real revolution. And this revolution is possible. To everyone who hungers for an end to oppression and injustice, and everyone who has the heart to fight for something that is really worth fighting for: You need to get into this revolution, become part of the organized forces for this revolution, and work tirelessly for this revolution, so that we can have a real chance to win.