Thoughts on Crucial Role of revcom.us and Revolution Newspaper
May 12, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
As we have been pushing out in a big way with the premiere of the exciting new film BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, selling the DVD and setting up showings of it, I've also been thinking about the important role that Revolution newspaper and the website revcom.us are playing in building a movement for revolution.
The revitalized revcom.us is a way for hundreds of thousands of people all over this country and the world to get into the revolution, including accessing the works of Bob Avakian and the new synthesis of communism that he is bringing forward, reading timely exposures of the crimes of this system, and learning about and getting involved in the movement for revolution that is being built. Revcom.us reaches way beyond the current circles of people who are currently a part of that movement and has the potential to have real societal impact around the big questions of the day. I feel everyone who has access to this website should be exploring it thoroughly and checking in as often as they can.
At the same time, I think we should reflect on the fact that Revolution newspaper has a "crucial role" as the "hub and pivot" and scaffolding of this movement for revolution, and I think we should ask ourselves how have we been using the paper? Have we really been maximizing its reach and the unique role it can play in bringing the revolution to the people and helping that movement to take shape? The last few issues have been very strong on the role of the new DVD, by the way, with comments from people who have seen it, pictures of people at the premieres, etc. The last issue had a picture of the Revolution Club at the film; and seeing themselves in it brought a sense of appreciation from some Revolution Club members, by the way!
Many of the basic masses do not have access to computers, especially in neighborhoods like East Oakland. I've been in plenty of apartments where there is not even a DVD connection to their TV (sometimes, there's not even been electricity). So the role of the paper is even more important in these situations... in spite of some literacy problems. In the past, we've had some small networks in the 'hood; but we have (I'm including myself here) let some of these networks lapse, perhaps falling into thinking that the paper is NOT as crucial among the basic masses as it actually is.
I want to pass on a selection I recently read from the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, in reference to an abolitionist paper, The Liberator. I know it's not the same as a revolutionary communist paper; but it did make me think about the role of a paper in organizing a scaffolding of a movement... which eventually had a "crucial" role in the civil war (e.g., think about the role of Frederick Douglass in organizing Black troops to fight):
"In about four months after I went to New Bedford, there came a young man to me, and inquired if I did not wish to take the 'Liberator.' I told him I did; but, having just made my escape from slavery, I remarked that I was unable to pay for it just then. I, however, finally became a subscriber to it. The paper came, and I read it from week to week with such feelings as it would be quite idle for me to attempt to describe. The paper became my meat and my drink. My soul was set all on fire. Its sympathy for my brethren in bonds—its scathing denunciations of slaveholders—its faithful exposures of slavery—and its powerful attacks upon the upholders of the institution—sent a thrill of joy through my soul, as I had never felt before!" (p. 69, Dover edition, which I bought at Revolution Books!)
A final anecdote of when I used to sell the Berkeley Barb (a radical alternative newspaper during the '60s)... we would wait in the early morning for the papers to come in, in a room above the old Telegraph Repertory Cinema. In those days, you bought x amount of papers and made a few pennies from each paper (it wasn't a living ... it bought you maybe a few lunches); but when things were really hot, the line of paper sellers waiting to get the papers was out the door. You knew there was something in that paper that the Chronicle or Berkeley Gazette was not going to talk about. (There was also advice on how to avoid the military draft for Vietnam, which the bourgeois papers were certainly not going to print).
Our paper is MUCH, MUCH more than that, much, much more than exposures. Every issue has BA in it! It is indeed the hub and pivot and scaffolding for a movement for revolution... revolution nothing less, in fact! And we need to use it that way!
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