STUCK IN THE “AWFUL CAPITALIST PRESENT” OR FORGING A PATH TO THE COMMUNIST FUTURE?

A Response to Mike Ely’s Nine Letters

As some of our readers may be aware, our Party and our Chairman Bob Avakian have recently been the target of opportunist and unprincipled attacks by Mike Ely, someone who was closely associated with our Party for many years. His “Nine Letters,” while purporting to offer “a critique of Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis,” proceed from gross distortion and mis-characterization of our Party’s line and practice in service of a political package which amounts to giving up on the goals of revolution and communism and has nothing positive to offer in terms of achieving a radical alternative to the monstrous system we live under.

As previously stated, we will not allow this or any other such unprincipled attacks to deter us or divert us from our fundamental purposes and aims, to lead the masses of people in realizing their highest and most fundamental interests, to make revolution and to contribute to the cause of communism throughout the world—to be emancipators of humanity.

However, these “Nine Letters” do constitute a “teacher by negative example.” And in keeping with our basic principles and methods, we seek to draw whatever lessons can be learned from even the most unprincipled opportunist attacks. For this reason, a writing group in the RCP has prepared a refutation of the “Nine Letters” which will be available at revcom.us on Friday, April 11 along with the “Nine Letters” themselves.

We encourage our readers to study this response in conjunction with digging deeply into the body of work of Bob Avakian and other publications of our Party, including Revolution.

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