During a recent event at Revolution Books in Harlem a patron presented reservations about a revolution, citing Malcolm X and that it would be bloody. This is an issue that Bob Avakian, as always, meets head on without equivocation in his latest book The New Communism. “You don’t make a revolution without tremendous sacrifice,” Avakian writes. This is a reality, he continued, “…you have to go through to get to a better world.” In this book, Avakian honestly and perceptively handles a number of questions about the difficulties of bringing about a total change in an oppressive system. It is a valuable addition to his corpus of work; a splendid exegesis of revolutionary potential.
Herb Boyd, author of the forthcoming Black Detroit—A People's Struggle for Self-Determination (Amistad Press, 2017)
Bob Avakian is a fearless revolutionary fighter for the poor and oppressed people throughout the world. From what I see of him throughout my years in the struggle, Avakian has dedicated his life to addressing everything that stands in the way of people getting free, and this book is a product of all that work. Anybody who looks at the world and sees police getting away with murder or people driven from their homes in countries around the world by wars and wonders what, if anything, can be done to stop things like this from happening again and again needs to read The New Communism.
Nicholas Heyward—Father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr.—murdered by New York Police Dept. in 1994
Bob Avakian has made trenchant observations and brought insightful analyses to a host of problems confronting contemporary society. He is genuinely concerned about the plight of the masses and has given much critical thought regarding proposed solutions for their uplift.
Norm R. Allen, Jr., author and founder of African Americans for Humanism
...I particularly enjoyed how BA stated the new constitution is constructed in such a way that you have to repeatedly win the masses of people to stay on the socialist road and ultimately communism. The very last sentence is an in-depth dialogue in its own right, continually winning people over to take up all manner of contradictions, including ones that the dogs put in your way to turn people against you.
I was likewise struck by the way BA issued the challenge that more people should be grappling with the new constitution to show what kind of society we're fighting for of course. But also to convey how heavy all this is.
Excerpt from Letter from a California prisoner, on reading a pre-publication copy of THE NEW COMMUNISM
Having gone and listened to a live, public Bob Avakian speech, as I have, is to be exposed to one of the most provocative, serious and controversial social thinkers of our time. He's an American original who should be heard, debated and critiqued for these dramatic and troubling times.
James Vrettos, professor, John Jay College, NYC
Before I was released from prison, I had the opportunity to read BA's latest work, The Science, The Strategy, The Leadership for An Actual Revolution, and A Radically New Society on the Road to Real Emancipation. This talk which he gave the summer of 2015 touched on a lot of significant points in a very concise manner, while at the same time reinforced key contradictions that we must become better at. The more we strive to reorient people towards approaching the problem and solution from a scientific approach, the better we will be overall in creating a material force—a movement for revolution—that will be capable of carrying out a real revolution in this imperialist country, and once successful, expanding that material basis on an international scale. Because in the last analysis, communism is about fundamentally transforming the whole world and being emancipators of all of humanity not just the proletarians and basic masses within the borders of the United States.
Excerpt from Letter from an ex-prisoner, on reading a pre-publication copy of THE NEW COMMUNISM