Readers’ Corner highlights views that you, our readers, send us on the big questions about making revolution. Questions about building the movement for an actual revolution. Or responses to, and thoughts provoked by, the social media messages from Bob Avakian—the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism. Thinking and questions you may have on other important documents from Bob Avakian (BA) and the Revcoms. As well as reflections on the new communism brought forward by BA, both overall and in relation to the urgent moment at hand. Now especially is a time for collective scientific grappling.
Please send these to revolution.reports@yahoo.com. If your submission isn't reposted, it will still feed into our overall enriched understanding of what questions we should be speaking to.
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Letter from a reader
Appreciating, Wielding and Promoting Bob Avakian's Official Biography
....I would like to recommend that people read, and wield, the recently updated “Bob Avakian Official Biography.” THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity in LA has been wielding this in meetings with broader forces who need to be united in a powerful movement built with the very specific aim of defeating fascism along with the series of @BobAvakianOfficial social media messages REVOLUTION #102-111. Additionally, we have been using it with people who have come into the Revcom Corps as a way to learn about the importance of revolutionary theory and to get an introduction to the actual breakthrough in human understanding the new communism is.
This biography is also really an excellent introduction to the person who is the kind of leader that has never before existed in this country and whose leadership is of enormous importance for the emancipation of all humanity. It gives a history of the formative experiences that made BA who he is, the times that helped shape him and the critical junctures in the development of those times where his leadership has been decisive—from growing up in Berkeley and his early political life to becoming a communist and communist leader, to the restoration of capitalism in China and the end of the first stage of communist revolutions. It gets into how BA was and is the only thinker and leader in the world today to meet this defeat with the interrogation of that experience in a way that has qualitatively advanced the science of communism. Theory that has met the end of a wave of revolutions in a world that is tragically stymied and existentially imperiled—paving not only a path out of this but a path to a future that not only makes revolution viable again but worth fighting for. Paving the way for a new wave of truly emancipating revolutions throughout the world. Read more
A Letter from a Reader—To the Revcoms, and All Who Seek a Radically New World
“A clear before and an after”:
What Bob Avakian (BA) has brought forward is not just another big advance in the history of our project. In the history of our project there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA—yes, building on the many lessons and accomplishments of the past, but, crucially, breaking with and discarding a tremendous amount of wrong thinking, wrong methods, and wrong practices, that, despite best intentions, seriously vitiated and contributed to derailing the first wave of socialist revolutions.
We shouldn’t want to repeat any of that! We shouldn’t want even the best of the past socialist revolutions and societies, especially now that we have an even much better theoretical and practical framework to work with! What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.
How much do we all really understand and appreciate that? Really agree? Read more.
Further Grappling with “A Clear Before and an After” with the New Communism Developed by Bob Avakian
I’ve been part of a lot of rich discussions responding to the letter from a reader posted here a couple weeks ago: “A clear before and an after.”
That letter makes the point:
In the history of our project [a communist world, free from all forms of exploitation and oppression, with an emancipating culture] there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA [Bob Avakian]...
One thing I’ve kept coming back to in these discussions is what it means to say that “the new communism is a whole new framework for human emancipation.” Or as it says in the letter, “What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.” Read more
What Is Most Important About Bob Avakian's Leadership?
From a reader
Several weeks ago, revcom.us published the following statement:
We will never succeed in having a real revolution in this country—certainly not one really worth having and that is truly emancipating for the vast majority of people—unless and until millions of people are won to become conscious followers of Bob Avakian and the new communism he has developed as the pathway and blueprint for the emancipation of all of humanity.
There are several important things in this crucial and true statement, but I want to start with what is the most important (and what is, at the same time, still the least understood and appreciated) part of that statement. The most important part of that statement is not merely or absolutely that there couldn't be a revolution without BA, but that any revolution that is not led by the new communism Bob Avakian has forged wouldn't lead anywhere good. Simply put: There is no road to human emancipation without Bob Avakian's new communism. There is no way to continue to understand and change the world in the fundamental interests of humanity as a whole, to overthrow and defeat the old order and build a new society and system that enables people to uproot and overcome all forms of oppression and exploitation, and do so in a way that unleashes and increasingly involves and relies on the masses of people in this process. Read more
Why Bob Avakian Is So Important
From a reader
“Besides the fact that he is the only leader in this country who is talking about a real revolution—and besides the fact that he is actually leading the process of actively working for that revolution—what Bob Avakian (BA) has done, with the development of the new communism, is of world historic importance. It is, in fact, a whole new framework for human emancipation. No one else has done what BA has done.”
In the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, the sixth one states that while BA is Chairman of the Party, he is “greater than” that. It goes on to say, “As we have emphasized, the leadership of BA and the new synthesis of communism that he has brought forward provides the theoretical framework, the scientific method and approach for a whole new stage of communist revolution, not just in this country but in the world as a whole.” BA is not just solving tactical problems or things encountered “on the way,” but BA has actually envisioned what the new socialist society would be based on and tackled the contradictions involved in moving a socialist society toward communism—without putting a gun to people’s backs. This is the historic contradiction and because BA has solved it with the new communism, we can actually say humanity has the understanding to get to a world without exploitation and oppression, to a conscious and voluntary association of human beings solving the problems of society and engaging in debate, creative and scientific activities, enriching humanity materially, socially, intellectually and spiritually in a materialist sense. Read more