COMMUNISM: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE

Coming Soon In Pamphlet Form

Revolution announces the publication of Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA in pamphlet form. The new pamphlet will soon be available for shipping. It was originally published as issue #143 of Revolution, dated September 21, 2008.

The Manifesto comes at a time when the communist movement faces a crossroads: whether to be, in the words of this Manifesto, a vanguard of the future—or a residue of the past. The Manifesto demonstrates the continued and even deepened basis for communist revolution in today’s world; it sums up the tremendous achievements, as well as the secondary shortcomings, of the first stage of this revolution, drawing the most cardinal and critical lessons from that monumental experience; it draws out the new challenges now facing the movement and it explains the key elements of Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of the science of communism, and shows the critical importance of that synthesis to the meeting of these challenges; and it analyzes the dynamics that led the communist movement to this crossroads. And the Manifesto goes deeply into the Cultural Revolution within the RCP itself, a decisive battle over whether this party would remain a vanguard, or degenerate into a revisionist organization seeking only to reform and essentially become part of, and “make its peace with” the current oppressive order—a battle which concentrated the key questions that face the entire international movement.

This Manifesto needs to be taken out far and wide. Its publication as a pamphlet should be taken as an opportunity to kick this off in a much bigger way. Readers and distributors of the paper should look to and make plans to actively take this new pamphlet out as soon as it is released and to make a push to get it out broadly over the next six weeks. Goals should be set and advance shipments ordered now with follow-up orders for more ongoing distribution which will be shipped on March 2 or shortly after.

This Manifesto needs to get out among the proletariat and oppressed in society. The Manifesto needs to circulate broadly on the campuses, including with talks in classrooms, and among intellectuals and artists very broadly. Major efforts should be undertaken in immigrant communities, especially where there has been recent upsurge and an openness to radical and revolutionary analysis. People should make a particular effort to get this out at conferences and other events that draw people who have serious questions about the state of the world and what can be done to change it.

In addition, this Manifesto must get into the hands of all those who have known and worked with this Party, in one way or another, over the past decades; and where this has already been done, follow-up should go on. Discussions should be planned for people to get more deeply into it, and the questions and insights that are provoked by those discussions should be systematically summed up and taken as the occasion to go deeper into the Manifesto by those distributing it. And, of course, people should write to the paper with reports on what is being done, and what is being learned.

To quote the conclusion of this historic document:

The emancipation of all humanity: this, and nothing less than this, is our goal. There is no greater cause, no greater purpose to which to dedicate our lives.

All that we have spoken to here, and what we have laid bare, in direct and unvarnished terms, should give even greater meaning and emphasis to the call for people who share, or respect, our determination to bring a new world into being, without exploitation and oppression, to rally to the aid and support of this Party.

To the revolutionaries and communists everywhere, to all those who thirst for another, radically different and far better world: Let us not retreat and retrench in the past, in whatever form—let us instead go forward boldly toward the goal of communism and the emancipation of humanity from thousands of years of tradition’s chains.

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