Revolution Club—
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated November 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
1. “Why are you wearing the BA SPEAKS: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirt?”
This T-shirt represents people getting free. Putting on this shirt means I’m no longer standing on the sidelines watching with no hope for the future or of getting free. I’m making a statement to be on the side of the people and getting ready for a time when there is a basis to go all out for revolution and end the nightmare that humanity has been trapped in for way too long.
Why aren’t YOU wearing the shirt?
2. “Why should I follow BA if he is white? How can I trust BA as a leader if I haven’t met him?”
No one should follow a leader because they’re white. Or Black. Or male. Or female. Or any other identity. People should follow Bob Avakian because he has answers on how we get free. He has answers for how we can make revolution to overthrow this system of nightmarish oppression, and how we can lead a new society on the road to real emancipation. BA is not leading any one group of people to try to get ahead of others. BA is leading a revolution to end all oppression and emancipate all of humanity. And if that’s not the leadership you’re looking for, what’s the point?
There are plenty of leaders you can meet who aren’t worth following to the grocery store. You can meet Farrakhan. He’s not even trying to lead a revolution! He’s so eager to get a piece of the capitalist-imperialist pie he even said he’ll make deals with the most powerful white supremacist in the world today, Donald Trump! You can meet with plenty of other forked tongue politicians and others who will stroke your ego, tell you what you wanna hear, and promise you a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s not what BA is about. BA tells you the truth, whether you like it or not. BA will struggle with you over where things need to go and what you can and need to do about it. BA has made a breakthrough in the science of human emancipation that provides us the tools to understand and radically change the world. And BA is leading the revolution with a deep connection to what people are actually going through and why it is so unnecessary. We’ve never had a leader like BA. And he needs to be defended and protected by the revolutionary people from a vicious enemy that would like nothing more than taking him out.
What people can do, and should do, is get to know this leader and his work. Great efforts are made to make this available at revcom.us, where you can get his writings and audio talks, including his memoir; the film of him dialoguing with Cornel West, REVOLUTION AND RELIGION; as well as the film of him talking straight up, BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!
3. “The revolutionaries don’t believe in God?”
“Let’s call this what it is—it is a slave mentality, with which people are being indoctrinated. All this ‘thank you Jesus!’ is a slave mentality.” (BAsics 4:18) Whose interests does it serve for people who are being fucked over and oppressed to accept this way of life as the will of a god who is punishing them or testing them with the promise of something better when they are dead? Who benefits from that? Think of what religion has been used to justify just in the history of this country: the pillaging and mass murder of the native peoples; enslaving, raping and selling African people; legalizing the beating and raping of women by their husbands.
We need to get beyond ALL lords and masters, and beyond all the oppressive economic and social relations, and traditional ideas, on which they rest. And to do that we have to confront reality as it really is. The truth is there is no god. And that is a great thing! It means we ourselves can understand the world using science and we ourselves can change it. It means we don’t have to be chained by books like the Bible that teaches that women should be killed if they are not virgins when they get married, children who rebel against their parents should be killed, gay people should be killed, and people who displease god or believe in other religions should be killed, including children (and if you bring us your Bible we can show you where it says that). We can get free of this kind of hate and this way of people treating each other.
At the same time, to join the Revolution Club you don’t have to agree that there is no god. Many good people, including revolutionaries, are motivated by their belief in a loving god that drives them to fight for justice. To make revolution, many, many of these kinds of “believers” are needed. To join the Revolution Club, you have to agree to the Points of Attention for the Revolution and while it is not a requirement to give up belief in a god, it is a requirement that we base ourselves on what we understand to be true and be open to discussing and debating what is true. Point of Attention #5 says this: “We search for and fight for the truth no matter how unpopular, even as we listen to and learn from the observations, insights and criticisms of others.”
4. “I heard BA’s a cult leader.”
This is the farthest thing from the truth and would be laughable if it wasn’t so harmful. Ironically, when people tell you this they are trying to get you to stop asking questions and stop thinking for yourself (which is what real cults do!). And even more ironically, what most characterizes BA’s leadership is that he leads people to think critically, which is the exact opposite of a cult leader!
So, we could all just laugh this off as ridiculous and idiotic. But it is actually harmful for people to be going around saying BA’s a cult leader—because it attempts to put a wall in between the people and their revolutionary leadership. It attempts to keep people disconnected from the leader they have who is on their side for real and leading them to rise to the challenge of freeing themselves and all humanity. BA has developed a new communism, an advance in science to understand human society and the world and how to change it, a toolkit that can be used to work through and fight through all the problems that stand in the way of getting all of humanity free of all oppression. He is also providing incredibly high-level leadership right now to the process of making revolution in the most monstrous empire on the planet. And he is hated and threatened by the powers that be and their followers and enforcers. What we need, what humanity needs, is A LOT MORE FOLLOWERS of BA. People taking up that toolkit and becoming leaders for this revolution. NOT RELIGIOUS WORSHIPERS OF BA. SCIENTIFIC FOLLOWERS. And a movement for revolution that will defend and protect this precious leadership.
5. “What’s in it for me?” / “I have to take care of me and mine first.”
What’s in it for you is losing those damn chains that got people held down! Getting PAST all that. Also while you’re “taking care of yours,” others are being murdered, rounded up, demonized, facing horror after horror on a daily basis. Quite frankly, it isn’t about you. It’s about the masses of people here and around the world putting a stop to this the only way it can be done—revolution, nothing less.
And we have a saying: “for whom and for what,” why are we doing this? We’re not doing this because it personally makes us feel good. No, it’s bringing forward another way outta this madness and we have that WAY. So break with that outmoded way of thinking and start living for humanity.
6. “You can’t win.”
How do you know? Have you studied past revolutions? Have you studied the strengths and weaknesses of this system? Have you studied how imperialist armies fight and how revolutionary armies fight and how “insurgent forces” fight? The Revolutionary Communist Party has done this work and a lot more. It has developed a strategy for revolution and a doctrine for how to fight with a real chance of winning, once a revolutionary people in the millions, and the necessary conditions for revolution, have been brought into being. The outline of this is laid out in the statement, “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.” We should dig into that statement together.
One thing it says in HOW WE CAN WIN is: "To make this revolution, we need to be serious, and scientific. We need to take into account the actual strengths of this system, but more than that its strategic weaknesses, based in its deep and defining contradictions. We need to build this revolution among those who most desperately need a radical change, but among others as well who refuse to live in a world where this system spews forth endless horrors, and this is continually 'justified' and even glorified as 'greatness.'"
The problem: this capitalist system of oppression and exploitation of millions of people here and around the world, along with the plunder of the environment. The solution is revolution.
Revolution requires millions of people who see or can be won to see the illegitimacy of this system and those who rule. The Revolution Club is organizing, NOW, for revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time with a real chance to win. We are Preparing the Ground, Preparing the People, Preparing the Vanguard for Revolution. What is needed is YOU!
7. “You’re going to get people killed.” / “The police are going to come down harder on me if I get involved in the revolution.”
What is actually worth living and dying and risking something for? This system kills and destroys people every single day, and gets people to take up its dog-eat-dog mentality and destroy each other. Why not put your life to something worthwhile? Getting rid of this system and emancipating humanity from this hell.
Yeah, if you step out of the life and get into the revolution, the police are going to hate it. They are going to fuck with you. We know all the dirty shit they are capable of—setups and murders and a whole court system backing them up. The police and the system they enforce would much prefer that you stay in your place, fighting over drug territory, taking revenge on other people in the same situation as you, going in and out of their prisons, always on probation or parole, always trying to stay low, on the run... and not causing any trouble for their system which keeps grinding you up and grinding up people all over the world. Children blown to pieces in wars for empire or washing up dead on beaches as their families try to escape war and poverty. Women killed in sweatshops that catch fire, or murdered for trying to go to school, or beaten and raped by men who consider them objects and property. Black and Latino people in the U.S. murdered by police, Rohingya people in Myanmar slaughtered...
So. What are you going to do inside this slave system? Bow your head and be an obedient slave? Or learn how to end the whole system of slavery and become a leader for the revolution to do that?
When you step into the revolution, you will not be alone. Every time the police try to take revenge on you for joining the revolution, you will have the movement for revolution at your back. We must mobilize people to support each other, mobilize lawyers to defend revolutionaries, raise money to fight cases, and most importantly bring forward more forces for revolution as we do all this. You stepping into the revolution now, putting on the T-shirt, living by and fighting for the Points of Attention for the Revolution—yes with all of the risks—inspires and gives strength to others to do the same.
8. “Black people will never get together.” / “White people are too fucked up.”
In saying that you are taking up the way the system wants you to think. Let’s look at this scientifically. It is the system that creates the conditions in which people are divided and not a predetermined human nature that says people are doomed to fight each other and exploit and oppress others. There are examples throughout history, even very recent history, where people from all walks of life have come together to fight the outrages of this system. People in times of acute crisis in society can have their thinking transformed and have their sights set higher and unite with others against the real enemy... this capitalist imperialist system and those who rule over it. Stop thinking the way the system wants you to think and step into the revolution.
9. “I have a responsibility to take revenge for my loved ones or I’m not a man...”
You are being played by this system that set up your loved ones to be killed in the first place and got you going after people who are just like you that this system rules over and oppresses. Give the lives of your loved ones some REAL MEANING by taking up the fight to get rid of this system that is really responsible. And when you start talking about being a "man" and not being a "bitch," this system has you played twice—now it has you trying to make your life count by dominating over and devaluing women.
Lift your sights and change what you are fighting for. Get out of that revenge shit that is just another form of “me and mine first” that is the way of life under this capitalist-imperialist system. Get out of that “man up” shit that keeps women enslaved and holds all of humanity back. Become an emancipator of humanity. Join the Revolution Club.
10. What does it mean to join the Revolution Club?
When you join the Revolution Club you join an organized group of people who are preparing for revolution—preparing the ground, preparing the people, and preparing the vanguard leadership, getting ready for the time when millions can be led to fight, all-out, with a real chance to win. In the Revolution Club you get trained to become a leader for this revolution.
In the Revolution Club you live by a different morality. You live by and fight for the Points of Attention for the Revolution. You are fighting for a morality that stands for a world in which there is no more exploitation of the many by the few and no more oppression of one group of people by another.
In the Revolution Club you learn how to lead people to stand up against the injustices of this system and learn how to come together and fight together against the system and all the ways in which it comes down on people. You learn about and do that in a way that contributes to and builds up the forces we need for a real revolution. This means learn how to fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution.
In the Revolution Club you learn about science—what it is and how to apply it to everything, including making revolution. This means learning about Bob Avakian’s new communism—and spreading this everywhere. You transform your own thinking and lead people to transform their thinking to start thinking about the interests of humanity first instead of “me and mine first” and to lose their fear of fighting to change the world. You struggle with people to break free of the system’s way of thinking. You learn—and learn to apply—the strategy for an actual revolution to overthrow the capitalist-imperialist system. You get into the vision and plan for the new society in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America authored by Bob Avakian (BA)—a society on the road to wiping out all forms of exploitation, oppression, and destructive conflicts among the people.
When you join the Revolution Club, you learn about and follow the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA) and the Revolutionary Communist Party. The most precious thing the masses of people have in their fight to get free is their vanguard party, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which leads the Revolution Club and the whole movement for revolution. In the Revolution Club you learn about the Party and how you can make the leap to becoming a communist leader and prepare to join the RCP.
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