Revolution #141, August 24, 2008
Four Special Two-Week Issues of Revolution
The next few months will be highly charged politically. In the context of the election campaign, big questions are being posed:
What kind of society do we want to—and are we willing to—live in?
What kind of future will we have?
And what kind of change is required?
Is it a matter of making adjustments to what already exists—tinkering, to be blunt, with the blood-soaked arrangements of empire? Or do we urgently need fundamental and radical change? And is a better world—a future really worthy of human beings—possible?
Do we still dare dream of revolution?
And is there a viable vision of what that is, and a leadership to point the way?
The recent publications, the Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, along with the soon-to-be-available-online Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, a major new work by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, are essential to addressing these questions. We strongly encourage all our readers to study, and correspond on, these works, and to find ways to circulate them in all corners of society.
This summer/fall, Revolution is publishing four special two-week issues:
- The current issue of Revolution (#141) on The Change We
CanAre Allowed To Believe In…Or the Change We Need? speaks to the millions of people whose outrage and anger, and aspirations for something very different, are being channeled into the Obama campaign. Obama has made “overcoming differences” a cornerstone of his campaign. The lead editorial poses important questions about that. For example: “How can you overcome differences between these opposing groups of people, other than through the capitulation of the one to the other, and in reality the capitulation of those who want to uphold and fight for the right to abortion and for birth control to those who are determined to abolish them, and criminalize them?” Other articles analyze the OBSCENITY of right-wing attacks on abortion, and Obama’s message of capitulation; and Obama’s “Yes We Can” Illusion...and the Killing Reality for Black People. The issue also continues “The TRUE Story of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Revolution in China.”
Central to this issue of the paper is REFORM OR REVOLUTION: Questions of Orientation, Questions of Morality by Bob Avakian. Avakian is speaking in this article, in an extremely compelling way, to many of the very questions on the minds of millions being drawn into the Obama campaign.
- Revolution (#142) will be published on September 2 (the day after Labor Day), and will feature an excerpt from a talk by Bob Avakian on: THE OBJECTIVE SITUATION, THE BUSH REGIME AND THE BOURGEOIS ELECTIONS. Millions of people worldwide were part of massive demonstrations opposing the Iraq war before it was launched. What happened to that? What did these demonstrations accomplish, and what did they run up against? That war, and all the things that compelled people here (and around the world) into the streets, are still outrages. But much of people’s outrage and energy has been diverted into terms set by the system and the Obama campaign. What challenges does all this pose—both for those who oppose the whole direction things are going, and for revolutionaries, but also for the rulers of the U.S.? The excerpt begins: “I want to say a few things about the current conjuncture, and examine, or at least identify, some serious problems confronting the ruling imperialists as well as maneuvers by and struggles among the different sections of these imperialists, and the challenges and openings this poses for our side.” It includes a substantial discussion of “World Can't Wait * and the Importance of Summation—on a Scientific Basis,” and a section on “The Obama Phenomenon.”
- On September 15, a special two-week issue of Revolution will present to the world: Revolutionary Communism at a Crossroads: Residue of the Past…or Vanguard of the Future? This will be a manifesto for our times from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The past several decades have witnessed truly unprecedented changes in the world. The reversal of the revolution in China following the death of Mao in 1976…the fall of the Soviet Union and rise of the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world…the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism as a major contending force in the world, ideologically and politically. . . and the radical reactionary transformations of the U.S. world role and domestic politics. All these have posed major challenges for the international communist movement, and struggle has arisen in the movement over how to meet them. Will the movement rise to those challenges? Or will it become a residue of the past, either locked in fading dogma or in thrall to the horizons of bourgeois democracy? This new manifesto will draw out and sharply contrast the contending roads before the revolutionary movement, go deeply into the direction and implications of each, and clearly put forward a line that can lead to a revolutionary future. If you have any hope, any aspiration, for fundamental and radical social change, you must read this statement and help us get this special issue out to every corner of society.
- On September 29, the two-week issue of Revolution will feature a broadsheet on Revolution and the Liberation of Black People. From the holds of the slave ships to the locked-down penitentiaries and desperate street corners of today, the bitter oppression of Black people, and the struggle against that oppression, has been central to the history and current-day reality of this society. But now some claim that this is all a question of the distant past. Others may acknowledge the desperate straits of the majority of Black people, only to then blame the masses themselves for this situation. Some go so far as to say that the nomination of Barack Obama signals the “transcendence of race” in America. And, meanwhile, the grinding and horrific oppression of the African American people continues. To take but one outrageous example, one in nine young Black men are locked down in prison—while crises like the collapse of the housing market and the new epidemic of homelessness hit hardest in minority communities. In the midst of all this, Revolution will publish a special issue on the emancipation of humanity and the struggle for the liberation of Black people. This will go deeply into the history and present-day reality of Black people in America, and will include a major statement by the Party that deals head-on with the main questions facing this struggle today, making the case for the necessity…and the possibility…of revolution.
* * * * *
People throughout society, people who hate what the U.S. is doing in the world and dare to dream of a different and far better future, need to get and get out these issues of Revolution. All these issues of Revolution need to reach out far and wide…on a significantly greater scale than usual, corresponding to the extraordinary times...unleashing a movement that is spreading the word, debating the communist analysis and view on these issues, and drawing in and involving many more people. And through this, building a movement that is preparing minds and organizing forces for revolution, with this paper as its hub and pivot—a movement of emancipators of humanity.
There are great stakes in what we do right now:To make and carry out creative and daring plans. To really maximize the potential in these four special issues. And as we get these issues of Revolution out far and wide, we should seize on every opportunity to engage people with the new Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the work of Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Check in at your nearest Revolution Books for discussions, bundles of Revolution, and plans to make this happen in your area. Or contact RCP Publications, Box 3486 Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654, or call (773) 227-4066.
Note: In addition to these special print issues of Revolution, stay tuned to revcom.us for additional articles posted online, starting 8/27, and 9/1, 9/8, and 9/15, as well as ongoing new articles in between issues, including ongoing analysis of the election. And throughout the next two months, we encourage and will be posting feedback from readers, posted online at revcom.us, or sent to RCP Publications (see below).
* Information about the organization The World Can't Wait! Drive Out The Bush Regime! can be found online at worldcantwait.org. [back]
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