Coming Events at Revolution Books

We'll discuss the question of reform vs. revolution drawing from this essay, from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian:

"Now, let me emphasize again: I can and do admire the morality of people who want to alleviate suffering (and who may not see beyond that). We should in no way denigrate or put down these people—people who do things like put water in the desert for immigrants crossing from Mexico—we should admire them and we should unite with them.

"But that cannot provide the fundamental solution to that particular problem, of the suffering of these immigrants and what drives them to leave their homelands in the first place, nor can it eliminate all the other ways in which masses of people, throughout the world, are oppressed and caused to suffer. 

"Or, again, while I admire the people who volunteer with things like Doctors Without Borders, if they were to say, “this is the most anybody can do, there’s nothing more you can do,” we would have to engage in principled but very sharp struggle with them, even while uniting with them and admiring their spirit, because it is objectively not true that this is all that can, or should, be done—and it is harmful to the masses of people to say that this is all that can be done. 

"In fundamental and strategic terms, it is necessary to choose where the weight and the essence of your efforts is going to go: into fighting the effects and the symptoms, or getting to the cause and uprooting and getting rid of that cause? And that’s why you become a revolutionary—when you realize that you have to seek the full solution to this, or else the suffering is going to continue, and get worse. That’s one of the main things that impels people toward revolution, even before they understand, scientifically, all the complexity of what revolution means and what it requires. And, as you become a communist and you increasingly look at the whole world, and not just the part of the world that you are immediately situated in, you see that the whole world has to change, that all oppression and exploitation has to be uprooted, everywhere, so that it can no longer exist anywhere."

★ Why the root of the problem is deeper than greedy billionaires.

★ Why we need to break the chains of imperialism, NOT redistribute the spoils of imperialist plunder.

★ Why U.S. “democracy” is actually the dictatorship of the capitalist class and why trying to take over the Democratic Party is a dead end.

★ Why the strategy of economic populism will not stop Trump/MAGA fascism.

★ Why you should NOT follow leaders based on identity, or what's popular, or what feels good—but whether they have a solution to the fundamental problem we face.

★ Why this system can't be reformed & must be overthrown.