Dear Students,

Welcome to UC Berkeley. You step onto campus at a time when the Trump regime is shredding rights, unleashing racism and misogyny, denying science, militarizing cities, unconditionally backing genocide—and now moving to strangle the universities. This is fascism.

You have been asked: “Who do you want to be when you grow up? What career will you pursue?” The real question now is: “What kind of society do you want to live in? What kind of world will you be part of bringing into being?”

Many of you have only known a world with Trump fascism looming. You saw pandemic lockdowns, the 2020 uprisings against police murder of Black people, and live-streamed images of genocide in Gaza. Now on campus, you are thrown into the battle over whether there will be any truth but “Trump’s truth”, and any law but “Trump’s law”. 

The fight is raging because universities are centers of critical thinking. 

But the fascists want obedience. They want silence. They want fear. Campuses are being bludgeoned to enshrine thought control. A cutting edge is the lying MAGA insistence that any criticism of the legitimacy or even the policies of Israel is anti-Semitism. UCLA was ordered to pay $1 billion for not sufficiently beating down anti-genocide protest last year. At Berkeley, Chancellor Lyons bowed to fascist questioning in Congress this summer, accepting the Republican framework that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. This kind of accommodation does not buy time, it only fuels demands for further submission.

But there is another way. 

Students can act—defying Trump’s demands, defending each other, professors, and institutions under attack. The universities must become centers of resistance—and as institutions refuse to go along.  And students should  answer the audacious call from RefuseFascism.org to flood Washington, DC on November 5 in mass, non-violent but determined protest, that will not stop until Trump is no longer in power. 

This will take courage. It will not be easy. It will take many people like you refusing to look away, daring to ask hard questions, and daring even more to act.

The hidden truth—the one they don’t want you to know—is that millions, acting together, can stop this.

Revolution Books, one block from campus, a rare resource. 

A place with books on history, science, poetry, fiction, art, and revolution. A place for debate on the burning questions. And a place to engage the work of Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who first stepped into political life on this very campus in the ’60s. He has forged a radically liberating new communism, which shows why this system of capitalism-imperialism, which gave rise to this fascism, cannot be reformed. A radically different, and far better system is possible—putting an end to oppression and exploitation, here and all over the world. We need a revolution for humanity to finally break free. And such a revolution is possible in this time. Come to the store, bring your curiosity and desire for a better world.

Here we stress something crucial: if you care about truth, you have a responsibility to approach Bob Avakian’s work with intellectual integrity. Don’t let gossip, anti-communist slander, or snark substitute for honest engagement. When the world is being torn apart, and critical thinking itself is under attack—it is more important than ever to grapple with the content of ideas and to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Anything less accommodates to the very ignorance and fear the fascists are trying to impose.

The time is short. What you do—or don’t do—will echo for generations.

With urgency and hope,
Revolution Books

2444 Durant Ave., Berkeley CA 94704            
510-848-1196        
@revolutionbksb