"If you are serious..."
An Invitation to Learn About—and Change—the World
November 9, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
People are grappling with very deep questions. We live in a world where millions of people are forced to risk their lives to flee their homes due to the imperialist wars, as well as the plunder and disruption caused by this system, and where the threat of even deeper war looms... where Black people and other oppressed nationalities within the U.S. are penned in everywhere they turn and face early graves, foreshortened and blighted lives, insult at every turn, and even murder, just for who they are... where women face a gauntlet of harassment, discrimination, oppression, and outright brutal and even murderous physical assault every single day, and where outrageous political and legal attacks, as well as vicious bullying, go on against LGBT people... and where the environmental emergency is putting the very future of life on this planet in doubt.
Is there a way to change—to really change—the way that people are forced to live? What would it take—what will it take—to not just change the many ways that people are oppressed, but to actually end oppression altogether? And what will your life be about in relation to that?
Yes, the world today IS a horror—but it doesn’t have to be this way; it is not a matter of human nature, but owing to the workings of the system. There IS a way out, a way forward. As we say elsewhere on this site, “Because of Bob Avakian and the work he has done over several decades, summing up the positive and negative experience of the communist revolution so far, and drawing from a broad range of human experience, there is a new synthesis of communism that has been brought forward—there really is a viable vision and strategy for a radically new, and much better, society and world, and there is the crucial leadership that is needed to carry forward the struggle toward that goal.”
If you are someone who is grappling with the big questions, right now is the time for you to dig deeply into that work, even as we fight forward to change the world. You can start by getting into BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the “handbook of revolution,” and by taking the six-hour journey that is the film BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Read these, watch them, talk them over with people inside, and outside, the movement for revolution. Let them work on you. (Revolution Books stores in local areas will be showing BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! in its entirety in December.) In addition, you can and should get into the film of the Dialogue between Bob Avakian and Cornel West, REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion. Taken together, these form a great introduction to the work BA has done... to enable you to understand what is, in fact, special about Bob Avakian.
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At the same time, there is an outline, by BA himself, which lays out the key elements of the new synthesis of communism that he has brought forward and developed. This outline—The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach, and Core Elements—provides “a basic grounding and guideline... to encourage and facilitate further engagement with the new synthesis.” Getting into this gives a sense of how BA has identified and gone at the thorniest problems facing revolutionaries and how, in the process, he has further revolutionized communism itself—identifying and breaking with those aspects of communism which were not, in fact, scientific, and putting the whole thing on a more scientific, a consistently scientific, foundation.
At the end of November, the Party will begin leading small group discussions of this outline—not to replace the ongoing engagement with BAsics or REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, but to enable people to get more deeply into the new synthesis and to really work with, and better grasp (and apply), the core elements of it. We will “walk through” the outline, taking up and going deeply into it, and exploring people’s questions as we go. (For more information on the discussion, contact your local Revolution Books store or Revolution newspaper distributor.)
If you are serious about revolution, and therefore serious about getting into BA, these sessions are for you. If you want to be part of this grappling, you should begin right now to either review, or to read for the first time, Ardea Skybreak’s book, Science and Revolution: On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism, and the Leadership of Bob Avakian (buy the book here or download PDF here). In addition, you should begin to dig into (or review, if you already have read them) the other works listed in the outline, especially “Ajith—A Portrait of the Residue of the Past,” by Ishak Baran and K.J.A., in Demarcations #4.
Don’t expect to get everything all at once—these are new ideas, and take effort. But don’t give up either—these ideas, this science, hold the key to changing the world, and the world MUST be changed. Everyone can learn to wield science and to consciously change the world on that basis. And that’s what these sessions are for—to get into these ideas and work with them, in a collective setting, and then apply them to changing the world... to making revolution and bringing in a new world.
Readers might also want to check out a Letter from a Reader: "'The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach, and Core Elements,' by Bob Avakian—A Unique and Historic Document."
Links to works referenced in this editorial
BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian
BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!
REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion
The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach, and Core Elements
“Ajith—A Portrait of the Residue of the Past” by Ishak Baran and KJA
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