Raymond Lotta Speaking On…
Revolution #013, August 28, 2005, posted at revcom.us
We received the following from Set the Record Straight Project:
This fall on major university campuses, Raymond Lotta will speak on why and how "Socialism Is Much Better Than Capitalism, and Communism Will Be A Far Better World." He will take on the "official history" of the 20th century: that the "socialist experiment has proven to be a failure" ... that "communism is dead" ... that "while capitalism may do terrible things, if you try to organize society in a fundamentally different way, it’s going to lead to a nightmare." Raymond Lotta’s speech will challenge this reigning consensus about communism. He will put before people the actual historical record of the "first wave" of socialist revolutions, in the Soviet Union (1917-56) and China (1949-76). He will be rescuing from distortion, and plain suppression of facts, what these revolutions were setting out to do and what they accomplished. These experiences of the past are very much connected to the possibilities of the future.
This speech is urgently needed. Many people are concerned about the direction U.S. society is headed in--"endless war," the "normalization of torture," moves towards a theocracy. People are anxious about the state of the world and the fate of the planet. In this situation, doesn’t intellectual discourse have to challenge the present framework of capitalism in order to be responsible? Can we leave humanity’s future to Bush and company? An honest conversation about the real achievements of the first round of socialist revolution, while critically examining shortcomings and errors, is required in order to point to a future qualitatively different. The Lotta speech will help pry open and create conditions for a more two-sided debate about the socialist experience.
Raymond Lotta is a leading Maoist political economist. He has written extensively about trends in the global economy, conditions in the Third World, and the experience of socialist revolution in the 20th century. His book America in Decline is a wide-ranging study of the economics and politics of empire. His essays in Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism survey socialist economic development under Mao and explore the character of what Lotta calls "a visionary and viable socialism." Raymond Lotta’s books have been reviewed in such journals as Foreign Affairs and China Quarterly. He is a contributing writer to Revolution newspaper.
An activist-scholar, Raymond Lotta has participated in antiglobalization conferences and protests in India and the Philippines. He has been a featured speaker at antiwar teach-ins. He has appeared in the media, most recently on Book TV in July of this year. Lotta is a engaging speaker who brings an informed and provocative perspective to the discussion of communism’s past and communism’s future.
To anyone who can see the necessity of this thought-provoking speaking tour to happen right now--starting on major campuses this fall:
Donate to help make this tour a reality. We have travel expenses, as well as the cost of reproduction of tens of thousands of copies of the upcoming "Frequently Asked Questions about Communism." This FAQ will take on the "settled verdict" that "communism is dead--and anyway, it was horrible," speaking to students and others who have never heard anything but this.
As one important aspect of fundraising, we are starting an ongoing eBay auction of items from revolutionary China. People with items they wish to donate to this auction should contact us via e-mail.
And others interested in getting this tour going and helping to Set the Record Straight--including if you have contacts at major universities who may be supportive--contact us at:
SettheRecordStraight@hotmail.com
Thursday, October 27, 2005, 7 p.m.
First Church Unitarian Universalist
3 Church Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact No: (617) 492-5443
Other events TBA
Online Maoist analyses of the Chinese Revolution, Tibet, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Tienanmen events: revcom.us/s/china.htm
Inspired by the writings of Bob Avakian, and against the facile verdicts that socialism has been a nightmare, or at best a terribly failed experiment, Setting the Record Straight is a project aimed at bringing forth the real and historic accomplishments of communist revolution, especially the lessons of the Cultural Revolution in China, while digging into the mistakes and shortcomings.
We want to contribute to creating an intellectual current that challenges the slanders and superficial summations, that insists on truthful examination of what these revolutions were actually striving to accomplish--the difficulties they faced, and what they were able to achieve--and that sees the relevance of all this to the deeply felt desire of so many for a radically different world.