Reporter's Notebook:

Editor’s note: The first two stops on Raymond Lotta’s tour, “Everything You’ve Been Told About Communism Is Wrong—CAPITALISM IS A FAILURE, REVOLUTION IS THE SOLUTION,” were at UC Berkeley on October 8, and at NYU in New York City on October 26. Each program was attended by some 200 people, mostly college students. The following is compiled from the notes of several Revolution correspondents at the NYU event—the names of interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy.

Students pick up their tickets with all kinds of expectations. They reflect the state of campuses today—where a communist and revolutionary alternative is essentially not a factor in the campus scene, and where debate has not yet been cracked open on socialism and communism. And they reflect some beginning cracks in that wall—intrigue… guarded openness… in some cases urgent interest in hearing an argument that something more radical than the current set of “choices” is necessary and possible. Nobody is “typical.” Everyone has a perspective, questions of their own. And they will all react to the event in different ways.

Two young women in line heard about the event at a class on socialist theory at NYU. A young anarchist heard about the event at a presentation by Slavoj Žižek. The title of the event is a provocation… and an attraction. One NYU student says it is “inflammatory,” but “it got me here.” A Latin American studies teacher said the email invitation seemed “challenging and counter-intuitive.” One student who started checking out communism in high school says she “definitely agrees” that capitalism is a failure. But, “I’m not so sure,” she says, about revolution being the solution, “I’m just interested to see what they mean by revolution.” Her biggest question going in? “How they expect communism to be different from the times countries have tried it and it’s failed… like in Russia.” Although, she poses, “Maybe this is just a reflection of what I’ve been told… ‘communism is a good idea, it might be different in practice.’” “Honestly,” she confides, “I’m a little worried that it’s going to be an extreme, scary communist person,” but she’s also expecting a new viewpoint not offered in school.

Everyone at the event is here with their own expectations, and will have their own surprises and reactions.

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After Raymond Lotta’s presentation, nearly half of the time for the event is devoted to questions and arguments from the audience:

Does communism subsume women’s liberation and racism? Or does it only open the way to solving these questions?

Isn’t greed part of human nature? Greed and war have been part of societies from the beginning of time. Greed has been a mainstay of everyone’s culture. And wasn’t greed responsible for the overthrow of communism?

I’m interested in poverty and the eradication of poverty. Jeffrey Sachs and Fareed Zakaria cite capitalist economic reforms as the solution—these are academics who pursue no imperialist agenda. Haven’t 100 million people in China moved out of poverty thanks to the economic reforms? And how would communism actually lift people out of poverty?

Didn’t the Cultural Revolution under Mao kill a million people in Tibet and destroy 6,000 monasteries? And you can give this lecture about communism at a university in the U.S., but what do you think would be the result if you gave a talk about democracy in Beijing?

I’m a white, heterosexual male born into an affluent household. I also know that the clothes I wear contribute to exploitation, and the same with the food I eat. And that it is not acceptable to do nothing about all that. Further, when people say that there is no value whatsoever in communism, that strikes me as wrong. But when you dismiss capitalism out of hand, aren’t you doing the same thing?

How would the revolution you are talking about deal with religion?

You say that you want debate—but would people be allowed to not just debate, but to overthrow communism in a revolutionary society?

The exchange is substantial, passionate and intense… and spills out into the packed lobby...

* * *

Navigating through the knots of people in the lobby is tapping into a river of feelings, questions, ideas, and arguments. A young Black woman is in the midst of an intense conversation. She is overheard telling a friend, “I agree that capitalism is the source of some problems, but is it the source of problems?”

Allie had gotten a flyer, and then invited Terry to come. In the lobby afterwards, Terry says that communism is something people don’t even think about. “They accept authority as truth, instead of taking truth as authority.” What surprised Allie most about Raymond Lotta’s presentation? “Just the total and complete way that capitalism skews everyone’s perception of communism, just the fact that it’s not talked about,” by people who “have an agenda.” Like many in the audience, Allie wants to learn more about the claims that Mao killed “a million” Tibetans, and plans to do some research on this.

Wayne and Jerry, in their early 20s, are rushing out. Homework to do? In any event, they take time to share their thoughts. Wayne says Raymond Lotta was “pretty enlightening.” The best moment? “Probably when he showed that quote and then the source of that quote from Mao.” (During his presentation, Lotta had projected three influential claims about Mao, and refuted them, including through exposing the supposed sources of these claims and distorted nature of widely disseminated quotes.) What are they inspired to learn more about? Wayne says “more about what the Tibet guy was saying.” Jerry: “The positive elements of the Cultural Revolution in China.”

The very outrageousness, and reasonableness, of what they heard provokes people. Roslyn says, “There are changes that need to be made, and need to be made on a communist track—I do believe that completely. I couldn’t agree with everything Lotta said, but I do appreciate at least the introduction of ideas and the fact that he is trying to create more of a dialogue with people that oppose those ideas who would usually just shut it down.”

Ben, an NYU student, thinks carefully before answering questions. The biggest surprise of the evening, for him? “Learning about the successes in China. You always hear that socialism is ‘a good idea, but it won’t work in practice.’” He said Raymond Lotta was “very smart,” but he wished “he would slow down and explain more of the terms he was using.”

Ben wants to follow up on Lotta’s response to the question about greed, and how human nature will transform under socialism. “When you make a revolution and begin the transformation from capitalism, how long does it take for people to abandon greed? Is it a couple generations? Or much longer?” He said that the main thing he got from the presentation of Bob Avakian’s new synthesis is that “Truth has to withstand questioning. Questioning is necessary or people can never really understand things.”

Alejandro is studying web design. He has his own ideas of how he would stage Lotta’s presentation: “If you want to have communism 2.0 [Alejandro’s term], the presentation should have been more interactive” with people posting questions from their seats during it (questions were collected on index cards from people who preferred that, but Alejandro argues for real-time digital interaction). He has been to China for web design work and says that “what you see on the outside”—he describes the glitter and economic growth—“and what is going on, on the inside”—he refers to the poverty and inequality—“are completely different.” Alejandro is sorting out whether or not China is socialist, capitalist, or some combination. Before the presentation, he says he “thought Deng Xiaoping was continuing what Mao was doing, even if just part. I thought he was like Stalin—trying to continue Lenin even if he just did that in part.” Most surprising in the presentation, for him, was that “Deng wanted to end the Cultural Revolution.” He thinks Bob Avakian’s new synthesis seems “really interesting. I’m going to go online and check this out.”

Jay and Nick are first-year NYU students who heard about the event in their microeconomics class. Nick says his overall impression of the evening is that “this is a good idea, but I’d have to see it in action.”

Jay said that he came because Lotta promised to “take on all opinions, which is cool” and that he liked the Q&A section best. Jay argues that Marx said capitalism and capitalist development laid the basis for socialism. How could Lotta “dismiss capitalism as a complete failure where Marx saw capitalism as a prerequisite for socialism.” Jay says that while he understood Lotta as arguing that a formal rise in income among the peasants might be overridden by things like ending socialized medicine and other social services, still “there is no way a rise in income can’t help people.” And even if this meant a temporary decline in living standards, it was putting people “on track to move to incomes of $5,000 a year, and then to the living standards we have.” He argues, “Sweatshops give people incomes, and without that there is no hope. This is an essential stage of development; the U.S. had terrible sweatshops earlier in its development.”

Jay is driven by a desire to end poverty. As he talks, he reflects new thinking and questions. His biggest surprise of the evening—hearing about the “economic and living standards advances” China made under socialism in the Mao years. Of Avakian’s new synthesis, Jay says “He wants economic reforms without repression, but such a radical revolution—can you say this will foster creative freedom?” He thinks Lotta was “very intelligent but not as open to capitalism as he wants us to be to communism.” Then again, he thinks out loud, “In a way I’m glad he was not a moderate or we wouldn’t have been so engaged.”

Claudia is a senior at NYU, studying digital communications in media, and cultural contextualization in media focusing on Black and Latino issues. She is not personally into traditional, organized religion, and is more attracted to American and African indigenous religious thought. She agrees “with part of what [Lotta] was saying, about how religion is very separatist and has historically been the root of many oppressive campaigns.” But, she thinks that “you can’t deny people the opportunity to embark on their religion because it’s so ingrained in our culture.” Lotta, she felt, “did touch on this.” She feels that “you have to find a way to educate, and maybe not push the issue of what is scientifically incorrect about religion, but more kind of pushing the issue of acceptance, and tolerance amongst the religious groups.” She thinks the event was “a very informative and dense presentation. I think it was so good how much information he was able to provide, and it’s definitely motivating me to learn more about the subject of communism as well as the different issues he touched on in Tibet and China, because my familiarity with communism, or socialist efforts, is more about communism in Latin America and Cuba, so this gave me an alternative perspective to that.”

Roslyn is a 23-year-old woman who dropped out of college in the South a couple of years ago. Sick of life in a southern suburb, she moved to NYC a year and a half ago and pays her bills now by tending bar. How did she get to this event? “Maybe it’s fate,” she says, “because I was just walking down the street and this guy gave me a flyer about it. Something inside of me wanted to come.”

She reflects on the evolution in her own thinking about what the world could and should be. “When I was 17 or 18, I really thought about this stuff, the fabric of society. But since then my thinking has been distorted by the media, and basically things that have been put in power by the people in power to distract people from change. Because people in power don’t want change.” Especially, she says, for women, “the whole distraction is being sexy, how you look, being an image that is perfect to guys—it’s really saying your whole worth is how you look, and how you act towards men, not who you are as a person.”

Roslyn bounces off the presentation with energy and urgency. “The whole thing about communism in general is the free thinking of ideas and change, and I think change definitely has to happen. A hundred percent. If it doesn’t, we’re doomed to be miserable. I think most people, even if they are rich and affluent, are miserable deep down inside. Because they see human suffering, and I think the majority of people do want people to be happy.

“I had the view that most people have, that ‘it’s good on paper, but it can’t actually happen.’ I think that is laziness. I would be interested to know how communism would tackle murder… stuff like that. What I got from this was not only a talk about communism, but a talk about change, which I think is the most important. I’m not a communist now from seeing one speech. I don’t know if it’s the right thing. But I think that what he’s talking about is the exchange of ideals—and ideas. And I think what he said about religion as a shackle, I think it has been used by big government, to those people, especially to poor people, as another ball and chain, and I think that we have to overcome it somehow.”

* * *

Repeated announcements that it is closing time finally get everyone cleared out of the lobby, and into the night… still buzzing.

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